The Fineshrine Gospel
by Zelda Zonkk
Summary: When a bear or a wolf stands in a trap, it'll chew through flesh and bone to free itself, and it'll limp along even if it's lost a limb and a lot of blood, just to live that little bit longer. I was the bear and the wolf that limped along only to find a Hunter. DarylxOC.
1. Prologue

**A/N: **I haven't written a story in quite a while, and that was mostly because of exams, which meant that all motivation had been drained from my brain. Except I've been itching to write this story for a _long_ time and I hope that whoever reads it really likes it, because I feel my writing is rusty and given that I haven't updated in a long time (sorry, _Abducted_, I'll write for you again eventually), I worried a lot about even posting this, but I did. I did and all I can do is hope it's enjoyable! I must say, writing about the weather in Georgia is always a problem because I live in a country that is pretty much permanently cold - if I'm inaccurate about anything concerning Georgia (and also guns, I know nothing about guns apart from whatever I've heard from television shows) in general, then my apologies, but I tried! I'd like to add that '_Fineshrine_' is actually the name of a really great song by _Purity Ring_. Also, given that it is _The Walking Dead_, I do warn you that it'll be pretty gory sometimes and there'll be cursing, but then if you watch the show I don't really know why that'd surprise you. Anyway, here goes!

**. THE FINESHRINE GOSPEL . **

**I**

Bruises have blossomed along its collarbone, flowering in pale ivory patches and rich purples, scratches blooming along its flesh in bright scarlet; its pearl swivels wildly about in its socket, a milky eyeball eager to find something, _anything_, to eat. It crushes a twig beneath its boots and startles itself with the sound, standing still and staring about in confusion. Its empty socket seems swollen and sore at the edges, but that pearly eye darts about, seemingly disappointed when it discovers it's entirely alone. So it stumbles with its stubborn limbs, arms swinging dumbly at its sides, its mangled mouth moving as if muttering to itself. The tatters of its torn coat snags on a stray branch and it bumbles about in an attempt to free itself, fumbling stupidly until it tumbles towards a bunch of bushes and brown leaves that collapse inwards when it stomps on them, its body falling forward with a harsh _thump _that echoes around the forest.

You can hear its legs crunch from the impact, its snarling seeming confused, fingers clawing at the dirt - when falling into the pit, its bones burst from its flesh, meaning it can barely crawl, but still it tries. Oh, how it tries. It tries even harder when it hears my heavy boots crunching leaves and crinkling wildflowers from above, its pearly eye drinking in my silhouette from where I stand at the edge of the pit, a gun swinging loosely in my left hand. It snarls, sneers, struggles; it tries reaching for my boot when I sit at the edge, but with broken legs it can't quite manage it, stretching its arm but barely even brushing the soles. I simply stared at it, head slightly cocked in consideration, feeling a strange sense of curiosity. Its eye ached with ravenous hunger, gnashing its rotten teeth together in frustration.

When gazing into that greedy pearl, it's hard to imagine it was ever human - but it was, and I suppose I'm doing it a favour, fingers trailing along my gun and finding the trigger with ease, raising it slowly. Then I shut one eye, in the hopes of hitting a clean shot through the front of the skull, frowning when I wonder if we appear similar, given I shut one of my eyes and, well, it only has one. If we did, then the illusion was cut short by the bullet shot through its brain, a spurt of blood streaming with it, faintly splashing my legs and the hem of my pants. Its hand, which had been trying to grab a hold of my boot, slowly trailed along the dirt wall it had been trying to drag itself on, cold fingers still stretching but just beginning to curl inwards as it collapses with a _thud_. Strangely enough, I feel kind of sorry for it, when it crumples like that. I guess it was simply sad; that's what Elijah said. He said, _we always wonder why it is that we're suffering like we are, and maybe we should wonder. Maybe someday, someone will figure out what it's all for, but I figure it's just sad. Sad that we do, and sad that we can't do anything about it._

**II**

Along a dirt road, dusty and doleful, we had signs that said things such as **WARNING** and **DANGER **and then, finally, **WELCOME TO FINESHRINE**. When the military were scouting for survivors and still trying to contain what they were very stubbornly calling an '_aggressive virus_', they found Fineshrine crawling with Biters and shot them all, abandoning it with a couple of signs and a staggering amount of corpses behind them. When the stitches that were still holding society together had been brutally torn apart, we had found Fineshrine and swept away the dust and the dead, but still the signs remained in the ruins of what had once been - because the danger had, too. All around Fineshrine, we had meadows of wildflowers that would blossom in the sunshine, bristle in the wind and tremble in the rain, with the distant rush of the river rumbling from behind the forest that hid us from the rest of roads.

I suppose it seems idyllic, all that I'm telling you, but what we did was militarize those meadows - stuffing traps between the trees or in the flowerbeds, digging deep trenches near the river for roaming Biters to collapse in and never climb out of, pits for them to fall in and perish in, even tripwires that could drop a net from the trees or set off a shotgun if you weren't careful. _You always had to be careful_, that's what Elijah told us. I tried, even though what I had to do wasn't exactly easy. What grisly things I did, my gang had a bad habit of calling it a _cleansing_ - only there wasn't really anything _clean _about it. What I did was scout the forest for Biters; if I found them trying to tug themselves free from traps or simply wandering around without reason, then I did what I had to do.

I put them out of their misery in order to ease my own, I guess.

If you did manage to miraculously dodge everything we had in the meadows and the forest, then all you had to do was find a wooden door along a yellow wall, its paint rusty-red and rotting, thin vines trickling along its splinters and scratches. Then what you had to do was give it a hard shove with your shoulder, because it couldn't quite close properly and when you did that then you'd probably stumble into a garden with grass high enough to tickle your thighs with every step you took towards the house. Our house was small and something of a struggle to squeeze us all in, but we did it.

Though we never said it aloud, Elijah Bradbury became the leader after having found it when he was wandering around all alone, as I had. He had taken in Lyudmyla Maksimov, an elderly Russian woman, who had been in a nursing home because of her brittle bones and bad arthritis. One night, the nurses give them their medication, they help them into bed, and they say goodnight. When Myla and her friends haul themselves from their beds the next morning - or at least, the ones that _can_ still crawl from their beds without breaking their bones - they're confused because the nurses didn't return and after a day or two they realise that they never will. Myla gets in a car that happens to be nearby when she leaves the nursing home, and in that car is a woman called Cecilia, whom she has never met, and her daughter, Ava.

Cecilia tells Myla that the city isn't safe, so they drive. They drive and they drive even when the gas light flickers and fades and the car goes _chuga_-_chug_-_chug_. Then it slows, sputters, stops. They climb out, all crying and convinced they're going to die when Elijah finds them. He says he has a home they can stay in, though it isn't much, and so they do. They stay with him, even when he finds Richard and Lily Rivers, struggling and starving, and Myla frets about the food that is quickly disappearing from the cupboards because of the swelling amount of survivors in the house. They stay with him when he says he's found a girl that's good with a gun and who seems sweet enough, and that means I stay with him too. He finds Theo and his three boys when foraging for food in a supermarket and Theo holds a gun to Elijah's head because his boys are starving and he's becoming desperate, and while gaunt and grim though they are, Elijah still says he has a home, that they aren't alone in this. Theo's boys - Joshua, Cam, and Oliver - they're scared because they believe Elijah's the bad sort that'll trick them and take what he can, but he doesn't do that and so they stay too. And while it was tough sleeping on a mattress with Ava and sharing everything from water to a can of beans and occasionally you felt the onslaughts of claustrophobia, that was the thing about Fineshrine - you still felt safe, because you weren't alone.

Whenever Elijah said someone could stay, that we could trust them, then we did, because he said we could. And that was it. That was all we had. That was Fineshrine, for what it was worth.

**III**

I found a supermarket once, before I had found Fineshrine and my fellow survivors, with cartons and corpses strewn around its aisles. It had Biters too, blindly bumping against one another and staring blankly into an abyss I prayed I would never be privy too. I was starving and desperate and that made me dumb, too. I made a mistake, made too much noise. That meant I was having trouble escaping them, stupidly trapping myself in this small office, heart thumping and head spinning from fear because I couldn't escape, couldn't do _anything _but stare at that door. I'm standing with sweat beading along my skin, breathing heavily and trying to stay calm but I can't. Then I hear this sobbing, soft whispers and sniffling coming from a closet in that office, and slowly I open its door to find this woman sitting on the floor between beige mops and a buffer machine.

She's bitten.

She says it between shaking breaths and snorting sobs, hyperventilating and hurting and clutching her collarbone where the bite sits bloody red and _raw_. She says her name is Anna, she is twenty-four and she'd been hoping to have been an accountant by twenty-five but things aren't really working out for her. She was bitten when foraging for food, and she'd been sitting in the closet because the Biters had been chasing her, and eventually they forgot she was there at all because she hadn't made a sound, but that had taken hours. Hours in which she had been bleeding, heavily. It was a puddle, pooling beneath her bottom and soaking the cream carpet that had become a startling scarlet. She had a gun but she wasn't really any good with it and it had fallen from her hands when she tried fighting off the Biter that was sinking its teeth into her flesh with unforgiving strength before bolting into this room .

She says, "Can you do it? Can you shoot me, before I become one of them?"

And all I can tell her is, _I'm Maisie Bellerose and I've never murdered anyone before_. _At least, not anyone still __living__. _

"But _can _you?"

I'm struggling. Struggling with the fear of what is thumping against those doors and with the fear of having to do what Anna is asking of me, of what she is begging for me to do even with bleary eyes and bloody hands taking mine in hers.

She says, "I don't want to be one of them."

Then she tells me that there is a window in the office that I mightn't have seen because it's covered with curtains and a wooden board, but I'd need enough strength to pull it down, strength she didn't have when she had been bitten, her shoulder screaming in pain when she'd tried. She hid in the closet instead. She didn't want to die, but if she had to, she was doing it how she thought it should be. Permanent. Eternal. Never to return again.

Then she says, with her voice trembling and her fingers violently crushing mine, "Please. Please, please, please, _puh-__lease_!"

I take her trembling hand, putting my gun in her palm and wrapping her fumbling fingers around it without a word. She tries to grip my shirt, tries to tug me towards her again, but she can't. She just doesn't have the strength. I tell her, "_I'm sorry_. I'm really, _really _sorry that this happened to you. I'm so sorry."

It seems stupid, giving a dying woman my gun when I'm about to attempt to bust that wooden board and bolt in the hopes the Biters won't hear it, that the bang of the gun distracts them - but really, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't kill this woman who I did not know and now would _never _know. Not when she was about to do what I could hear in between furiously kicking the wooden board with forceful thumps, hearing her prepare by whispering a prayer. The board busts at its edges and I cut myself raw trying to rip it apart, but I manage it. I tell her I'm sorry again beneath my breath, feeling cowardly because I can't even bring myself to turn around, can't even bring myself to _glance _at her again, because I'm afraid it'll be the moment she pulls the trigger. Instead I run, run far from the Biters and the bitten, towards trees I can hide in. Then I hear it, this almighty _bang_ and I'm breathing hard because her blood still coats my trembling hands, crying hard and barely able to-...

**IV**

I don't know why I'm telling you all of this or why it even matters at all. It doesn't matter. She died and I didn't, that's all. Only that particular memory had dredged itself from where I had buried it somewhere in my brain, meaning that no matter what I did, I couldn't smother it even though I was trying my best to do just that. All I could do was sit with Myla, whom I had a real fondness for, while the rest of our friends sat playing poker in the candlelight at the kitchen table, finally having a bit of fun pretending to gamble once the children were safely in bed, sleeping and snoring. Myla sat stitching patches on torn clothing, her nimble fingers twinging with arthritis, but still she didn't complain because she was afraid. Afraid of something never said aloud; she was afraid of becoming dead weight, the sort that would have to be left behind in a hurry, because she couldn't run or hide very well. She knew this not because she thought we would do this to her if we had to, but because it'd already happened to her in the nursing home. That seems cruel, saying it so bluntly, but it's the truth. You had to understand these things. Even if they hurt you.

We didn't have much choice in what we wore most days. If it was clean and kept you from being cold, then you wore it. I said I'd do the laundry tomorrow night, which really meant sloshing clothes around in a bucket by hand, in the sort of murky water that made you wonder if you were really even cleaning them at all. We hadn't been to the river in a while, but I thought I might make the trip myself tomorrow if I had time, even if it meant lugging a bucket. I could bring one of the boys along. I was helping Myla thread needles because her eyesight wasn't the best, balancing on her armchair and biting the strings with my teeth to tear them rather than find scissors. All I could hear in my head was echoes of _please, please, please_ and it was making me miserable, thinking about it. Sometimes you can't help yourself. Sometimes you had to sit and simmer in it, waiting for that moment when you can swallow it all and simply breathe again. I was waiting for that moment.

"You're a cheater, Eli!" Theo blurted, blushing a little bit when Cecilia hushed him lest he disturb the children.

"Oh don't be a baby," Elijah snickered, trying to stifle his smile. "We're betting with pieces of paper, Theo. It's not like you're gonna go to bed broke or anything."

"Ah, but it's all about the _principles _of it all, the _principles_," Theo replied, but he was smiling too. "You shouldn't try to cheat a friend."

"Says you," Lily muttered. "We all know you cheated the last time we played this, you had way too many papers! I figure you just picked 'em from the floor and pretended."

"Now Lily, I resent that statement, you're slandering my reputation!"

"What reputation?" Cecilia asked, giving his shoulder a playful shove.

Theo shrugged. "Smart, handsome, all around nice guy. _That _reputation."

"Moron," Richard muttered, sighing at his dwindling pile of papers. "Can't we play another game?"

"Why, because you're losing too? Bunch a' sore babies," Elijah laughed, leaning backwards in his chair, before letting it fall with a sharp _clang _against the wooden floorboards. "Fine. I'm getting tired of poker anyway, that's all we ever play. You'd think we could find a board-game, like _Twister _or something. Can't cheat at that. We could try and find something to play, scavenge the houses nearby again."

"You want us to risk _dying _for a stupid game like _Twister_?" Cecilia asked incredulously.

"It's either that or we die of boredom," he shrugged, grinning when the rest of the group groaned. "And I know which way I'd rather go. What d'you say Maze? Wanna go with me?"

They all turned to look at me from where I sat tying a piece of string around my finger, the flesh turning a light lilac. I smiled at him, swallowing that sadness when I saw how hard Elijah was trying to make them happy. To make _us _happy. "Why not?"

"That's my girl," he murmured, tossing his cards on the table. "That's my Maisie."

I could breathe again.

**V**

The Biters, you could hear their bones crunch when they hit the hard ground of the pit sometimes; you'd find them crawling around on that dusty floor, still trying to claw at the dirt and drag you in with them. In the mornings, after inhaling mouthfuls of tea that didn't quite taste right and eaten bread with soft spots of mold that I couldn't complain about because it was all we had, I'd stroll through the forest and find them. I was standing near a pit again, empty except for one Biter that surprisingly hadn't broken his legs from the fall, but who was still scratching feebly at the dirt trying to drag me in with him. I was sipping cold tea, considering the best method to begin this stupid _cleansing _with when I heard a twig snap. I spun around, my gun in hand and aiming for the forehead of this stranger, when they fell in surprise, shrieking. My eyes trailed towards the woman scrambling along the wet leaves with her hands, apparently not afraid of stuffing them in mud and shuffling backwards on her bottom, babbling and begging me not to shoot. I was staring at her, somewhat baffled by her.

"I-..."

One word, that was all that left my lips, and she was shrieking again. Twisting around, I gazed at the Biter below who was getting quite excited by all this, and gave him a small shrug. Glancing down at her again, I gave a small sigh, wishing Elijah would emerge from the bushes around us and deal with her instead.

"Stop shrieking," I stated flatly, and her simpering eased slightly, though she was still snotty and taking gasps of air as if she was suffocating. "I'm not going to shoot you, and if I was I'd have done it already because you're bringing Biters on us, shrieking like that. It's stupid."

"I'm sorry," she sniffled, wiping her sleeve against her nose. "I-I was afraid if I startled you or shouted at you, you'd shoot or-..."

"You shouldn't shout or startle anyone," I agreed. "That's also stupid. Standing behind them without saying anything is even more stupid."

"Well, I guess I'm stupid then."

A tiny bit sharp, that tone of hers, but I didn't mind too much. I gave her a shrug and said, "I guess you are. What's your name?"

"R-Rose Campbell," she replied cautiously, eyeing me warily. "What's yours?"

"Maisie Bellerose. Are you alone, Rose?"

"Yes."

"I'm thinking you aren't as stupid as you say, Rose. Which is why I feel you won't lie about something like being alone," I said, voice steely and strong. Then I did something that, to most, seems shameful but that I'm not ashamed of because felt I had to do it. I grabbed her by her blonde hair, scratching her scalp, hearing her shrieks and dragging her to the edge of that pit where the Biter stood frantically clawing at the dirt because he could finally see us. He was hideous, drooling blood and biting at her, but I held her even when her nails dug into the skin of my hands and she was begging me not to drop her, so that she knew I _could _do that within a heartbeat.

"If I find out you're lying, Rose," I said, very calmly, low enough for her to try to control her sobs in order to hear me, "...I'll drag you through this forest and find all the traps that we've hidden in it, even the shiny new ones that haven't been stood on and I'll _make _you stand on them. Believe me, there's a lot of them that are just _itching _to clamp down on a leg or an arm, if you were unfortunate enough to step on one - or two, or three. I'll make you feel every bit of pain that this Biter can't. Then, when you're bleeding and you're hurting, I'll toss you in with him, because _I don't like liars_. Do you understand what I'm saying, Rose?"

I gave her a harsh shake to scare her and she cried out with her voice cracking, "Y-Yes, yes I understand!"

I tore her away from the pit and she scrambled away from me again, staring at me in horror.

"Hm. Perhaps you aren't so stupid after all."

**VI**

Somehow, when welcoming another stranger into Fineshrine, I became the enemy within moments of their arrival; Elijah had heard how I had held her by her hair, dangling her above that Biter as if she was his dinner, and he was _furious_. He held that fury within himself when bringing Rose to the bathroom to bathe her cuts and bruises, apologising for the cold water and telling her it was all we had. He brought her blankets and told her that he had a mattress for her in Myla's bedroom if she was willing to share with Lily for the night, promising that he'd hunt all the houses in the area for another mattress for her in the morning. He held that fury in when Rose told him about her fear, how she truly thought I'd throw her in with that Biter and how _alone _she had been all this time. Then, when he had given her a smile and she had told him just how grateful she was for his hospitality, he gently shut the bathroom door and that smile slowly become a grimace, teeth grinding and jaw twitching. We could hear him all pleasant and welcoming to Rose and I thought that meant he wasn't too mad at me anymore. Wishful thinking. He found me leaning against a counter in the kitchen, lazily chewing an apple and listening to my friends' chatter about this stranger, and this is let his fury out.

"You wanna tell me what that was all about, Maisie?"

Things became silent, everyone staring at Elijah in surprise. Straightening my spine and feeling flush as if I was a schoolgirl being scolded in front of her entire school, I swallowed the pieces of apple I'd been eating and gave him a shrug. "I don't-..."

"Don't even try to make excuses, Maisie Bellerose. Admit what you did."

"Admit I held her above that Biter to scare her?" I replied, raising an eyebrow. "Is that what you want me to say?"

"You did _what_?" Cecilia gasped, and my heart did a strange sort of flutter, feeling very faint all of a sudden. I'll tell you that I was struggling to say something, and that in itself made me struggle even more - because I had _never _struggled with explaining myself to Elijah. In front of my friends in Fineshrine, I was almost always very quiet. Not shy, but simply quiet. Calm and always in control. In this moment, I was floundering and finding it hard to sputter even the smallest word without feeling foolish.

"I-I...Well, I thought she might be...dangerous. She's a _stranger_, Elijah," I finally mumbled, but he merely huffed and my heart felt as if it was tightening. "What was I supposed to do? Bring her to the house, as if that's still something you can do when there are..._thugs _around trying to-..."

"She was alone," he replied sharply. "_Alone_, Maisie, and afraid. Remember when _you _were alone, and afraid, and _I_ found you?"

"That was different, I-..."

"When I found you, I gave you food, I gave you friends that could protect you and I gave you everything I had in this house, I gave you Fineshrine itself on a _platter_!" he hissed, pointing furiously at me.

"I do the protecting," I said flatly. When those words left my lips, I had a moment in which I saw his eyes becoming wide and his skin a milky white, and I wished I could see what I had said, that I could make my words tangible and tug them towards me again, greedily stuffing them in my mouth and swallow them all to stop him hearing them. But he _had _heard them, and I couldn't help myself. "I do the_ cleansing_, if that's what you wanna call it. But you wanna know what I call it Elijah? A slaughter. Because that's what it is. You all stand around the house, but I'm the only one that goes into that forest to find the Biters-..."

"Maisie," he tried, raising a hand, but the words were spilling. Overflowing. Suffocating them as they had suffocated me for months.

"I'm twenty-two, Elijah," I continued, my voice cracking and tears escaping from my eyes without my consent, "...or I _was _twenty-two. I don't feel it. I feel as if I've been alive for a lot longer than that because of what I do in that forest. But I do it, because I thought I was protecting you. To protect the friends and the food _you _gave me, to protect _Fineshrine_. But apparently you weren't clear on what was a threat and what wasn't. _Apparently _the living are off the limits, but the dead, that doesn't mean anything. Apparently it's a bullet for a Biter and a blanket for the living even if-..."

"Maisie!" he shouted, and I shut my mouth immediately. I was shaking, feeling mortified because even Elijah was silent in the moments after everything I had said, all of them _staring_. That was probably the loudest I had ever been, the most I had ever said all at once. Then I couldn't take it, cursing them and stomping by him towards the hallway where I could hear Rose sloshing about in her bath. I hid in my bedroom, burrowing beneath my blankets. I didn't eat my dinner, deciding that Rose could enjoy it instead, an extra portion along with Elijah's because he probably sacrificed his to help this starving woman, always trying to save everyone. Which was exactly what _I _had been trying to do too.

I was still feeling sore about this when Ava, whom I had to share a mattress with, came crawling in and curled herself along my spine. And I was still sore about it when I heard footsteps creaking in the hallway, and my bedroom door softly _swoosh _open, and I saw Elijah standing with a candle in his hand and then heard him whisper, "Maisie?"

I was being stupid and I was being stubborn, but I was staying silent too, like I always did.

"Alright, Maisie, you're angry with me," he says quietly, "...I get it. I understand that. I understand that you didn't really want to hurt Rose, too. I...I shouldn't have shouted at you, either, that was foolish of me. About the cleans-...About the Biters in the forest - we'll discuss that in the morning, because I've been thinking about it and you're right, Maze. You shouldn't have to do all of that by yourself. I just thought...I just thought, if you didn't complain about it then you weren't really affected by it. That was foolish, too. But it'll change, Maisie, I promise. I know you're pretending to sleep because you don't wanna talk to me and I get that, I really do. But just know that I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Maisie. Goodnight, sweetheart."

When the door shut, I heard him stand for a moment before his boots made the creaky floorboards cry. I still didn't call out to him.

I was being childish. I was being stubborn. This is my downfall.

**VII**

Gasoline spills across the kitchen floor. It spreads, seeping into the splinters of the wooden floorboards and soaking the bundle of blankets that I had brought to the forest that morning and that I had carelessly tossed by the cupboards for Myla to stitch because they'd been torn and I was tired from hauling a squirming Rose to the house. I suppose it doesn't matter, not when a lit match was thrown and the blankets set ablaze. While they burn and the gasoline drinks it all in, spitting fire and smoke, the strangers slip into the hallway and shut the door behind them with bags of food and medicine stolen from the pantry we put them in. Through an open window, they shove them out towards another man who has been awaiting this and who then rushes off with everything we have ever found, or at least most of it. What they didn't steal is burning, smoke billowing from beneath the door they shut. Instead of running with him, of escaping this fire that's eating the wood of the door within seconds, they dart towards the stairs because they aren't finished yet. This is when they bust a bedroom door down and shoot Oliver and Cam, who had been sleeping. Oliver, being fifteen, and Cam, a measly thirteen, cruelly shot by men that did not care if they were children or not.

The gunshots startle the house from its slumber. I'm already scrambling from my mattress, trying to soothe Ava who is crying and calling for Cecilia, her mother, who had been sleeping beside us. I don't have a gun. Having held it to Rose's head last night when bringing her home from the forest, I had been told by Elijah to _put that thing down _because Rose was so afraid. I had done what I'd been told, leaving it on the counter and well, after my fight, I didn't think to bring it to bed with me. I'm cursing myself, especially when Ava is crying and Cecilia's still babbling.

Another shot screams through the silence and Ava clings frantically to my arm and I'm shaking, badly, but still trying to calm myself because I can hear footsteps in the hallway. Cecilia grabs her daughter and begs me to tell them what to do because she's petrified and she's trying not to cry but I'm not doing much better. I'm hauling Ava towards the window, our only option, when I hear _fire_,_ fire_,_ fire_! Whoever had been in the hallway thought better of it, bolting towards the bedroom where the boys had been shot. We had a porch beneath our bedroom that I had never really thought about being thankful for, because I never thought I'd be trying to push Ava and her mother towards it and telling them that if they fell, they'd be fine. Even if I couldn't possibly know if that was the truth or not, I tell them they'll be fine.

Another gunshot, and another. Shouts and then screams of agony. Another gunshot. Silence.

Then Theo is standing beneath the porch and promising Ava he'll catch her, which is the only thing that convinces her to just jump. Cecilia climbs out after her, clinging tightly to the slates of that poor porch for all she's worth, repeatedly glancing downwards to reassure herself Theo is still standing beneath with arms held out in anticipation. Cecilia was slipping, but her pale hand was still stretching towards me, eyes pleading because she's afraid of falling and hurting herself. I'm saying soothing things, like _I'm right behind you _and _you won't get hurt, I promise_. This is when the bullet hits her, somewhere in the chest or stomach, I can't be certain. This is when she coughs and blood dribbles along her chin and she slides along the porch, falling with a thump because Theo too has been shot and cannot catch her. From where I stand at the window, I can't see Ava, not even her shadow slipping through the thistles of the garden or being taken by these strangers. Whoever shot Cecilia and Theo tries taking aim again and ricochets against the frame of the window - but I'm already running for the river, which is where we're supposed to go, which is where Elijah _told _us to go if _something happens_. This is something happening, and so I'm running. Running for the stairs, slipping on blood in the hallway but not finding who it belongs to, running for a broken window in the living room. Running through the garden and towards the red door, its splinters and spots of rotting red paint a relief to find still standing even in this chaos, when I hear a shout and stumble, and finally cast a glance behind to find something terrifying.

Four shadows facing the house in front of them, kneeling with their hands held behind their heads, while a firing squad stands behind them. I'm crying and I don't even realize it, not really, because there are possibly twenty or more men standing by that burning house, aiming for the kneeling shadows - and they're _laughing_, like hyenas. One man shouts something and they are silent. Four of his men step forward. He shouts again. They aim for the shadows that I'm slowly understanding are my friends from where I stand with one hand holding the wooden handle of that red door, utterly terrified. The man shouts - I'm sobbing, afraid to run and afraid to stay - and he shouts again and then his men shoot. The shadows straighten for an instant and then sag, falling to the floor, hidden by the high grass, and I sort of whimper. Except it isn't a whimper. It's something I can't explain, a sound of horror and fear and guilt and regret. It's pain. It's terror. It's everything that I can't express in words. I choke on it, coughing and crying all at once. Then I run, because the men that shot the shadows turn around and I'm afraid they'll find me.

Running through the meadow and then the forest, with tears blurring what little I can see, I'm scrambling across broken branches and stray roots in shoes that aren't exactly the best for this sort of thing, but that I had worn because in the chaos I could find nothing better. I'm terrified I'll turn and find them trying to shoot from behind trees or hidden in bushes, but I don't - what I do see are flames flickering and smoke sailing for the inky sky above, and I know it will entice every Biter that beholds it. I'm getting lost, too, looping around because I'm disorientated and don't know which way the river is anymore. I'm sniveling and sobbing, still struggling to even breathe because of what I had seen and I can't remember where the river is but-...

Pain, hot and sharp and terribly sudden, takes a hold of the flesh of my calf and crushes it, making me crumple and cry out. Through my tears I can't tell what is holding me, believing it's a Biter about to chew my flesh apart and that all I can do it stuff my fist in my mouth, afraid that if I scream those men will hear it and hunt me as if I was an animal. It isn't a Biter - it's a bear-trap, its jaws splicing the bone of my calf and cutting it in half. Its metal mouth swallows mouthfuls of my blood which oozes from the wound, and its teeth grind against that gory bone sticking from the gash. I'm biting hard enough for blood to trickle from the knuckles of the fist still held against my teeth, trying not to scream. If the men raiding my home don't hear me, but the Biters definitely will.

There is a tree behind where I'm trapped, and I lean against it, letting out panting puffs and stuttering breaths, trying to soothe my pounding heart and smother the pain. The bear-trap has a chain that I tied to a branch when it was brought to the forest within my first month at Fineshrine and it clinks when I try to shift closer to the tree-trunk. When I had been scrambling to escape with Ava and Cecilia, I had taken shoes instead of boots and thought that stupid, but when sitting in that forest with a bear-trap swallowing my calf and cutting that bone in two, I thought it mightn't have been that bad a choice. Because I understood what I had to do. I understood that I had to suffer and not scream, because of Biters and bad men.

I'm already holding a shoelace between my teeth and undoing the other when I hear the bushes tremble.

My fingers fumble for a gun and find nothing, because I had forgotten I had nothing to protect myself with. Then I'm crying, but not from the pain of the bear-trap or the blood spurting from that wound - I'm crying because when a figure emerges from the bushes, I'm relieved to find it's Rose standing with a bag thrown over her shoulder and a gun in her hand and I'm thinking to myself, _hallelujah_! _Hallelujah, because I am not alone_! She stumbles, staring at me, eyes slowly falling towards the bloody gore that is my left leg, a hand flying to her mouth in horror. Rose is so revolted by it that she turns away, staring at the ground instead, her skin a ghostly grey. Though I may have been the one with a broken bone and skin split from a bear-trap, it was Rose who was shaky, her voice trembling but I thought that might be the blood and the visible bone that made her feel faint - then she vomited, coughing and clinging to a tree for support.

"I-...I'm sorry," she says. With a shoelace dangling from my mouth, I figure anything I say will seem muffled and she mightn't hear it. Instead I grit my teeth and prod that bone poking through my flesh, again biting my fist. Rose is in something of a daze when she says, "I didn't know they'd-...They said it was for food, for survival-..."

In my chest where my heart should be is a hollow cavity, having collapsed when I heard her words. My eyes trail to the bag on her shoulder, afraid of what I'm beginning to realise. Of what I should have seen. "_You_ were with them? You...You _stole_ from us?"

She nods and lets out this pathetic little whimper, holding a pale hand in front of her mouth again because her lower lip is wobbling and she can't even bring herself to see the fury in my eyes. "I- I didn't..."

"Get me out of this thing," I growled, shaking the chain angrily, the shoelaces falling from my mouth. I don't say what I'm thinking. I don't say, _because I want to strangle you and feed you to the Biters_. Her eyes flicker towards where the house should have been but instead there stood a smoking ruin, and she takes a step backwards towards the bushes behind her. I can't believe this. I can't believe _her_. She's going to run and leave me to die in this trap. She's going to leave me. "_Rose_-..."

"I'm sorry," she repeats. "I-If they find me, they'll _kill _me! I stole a bag of food from them too, I had to, I don't want to be with them anymore! You don't know them, there's thirty of them and-...

"You traitorous little _bitch_, you-..."

"I had to do it!" she hissed, standing defensively and daring to gaze into my eyes for only a split second. "You don't know the things I've seen, what I've _had to do_! If you did-..."

"You're a murderer!" I spat, and she flinched. "We gave you a _chance_, we trusted you! _Elijah _trusted you!"

"You don't understand at all," she interrupted, shaking her head. "You don't. Someday you will, you'll see the sort of things I've seen and-..." - she was walking away, towards the bushes, and I was trying to tug on that chain to get closer to her - "...and you'll understand that I did what I had to do to _survive_."

"You can't just...You can't just _leave me here_," I whispered incredulously, my hands clenching the chain tightly and shaking it as if to prove that to her. She was still walking away, and all I could do was stare at her helplessly, tears stinging my eyes.

"W-We took you in, we-... You can't just leave me here!" I screamed, my voice hoarse and hurting, but I screamed nonetheless. In that instant, I didn't care about Biters or the men that might still be burning Fineshrine. All I could see was Rose Campbell. "I'll _die_, you coward! You _coward_! YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE ME HERE TO DIE! IF I EVER FIND YOU AGAIN, I WILL KILL YOU! DO YOU HEAR ME ROSE? I'LL KILL YOU, YOU COWARD! _YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE ME HERE!_"

I kept screaming even when I knew she could not hear me. I kept screaming even when my voice became hoarse and my head hurt and my hands tried frantically to slow the blood flow that was seeping around the jaws of this bear-trap. Slowly, my screaming became a soft sobbing, because I understood that I was all alone again and my soul was awash with sadness, so much that it was suffocating and all I could hear was Elijah's words about suffering. _I figure it's just sad. Sad that we do, and sad that we can't do anything about it._

In my heart, however, I felt something flicker, a defiant flame akin to those that had taken Fineshrine hostage and destroyed it - I'd survive if it meant catching Rose again, even if it meant crawling across the country with the bones of my calf cut in two, and I'd do what I had told her when dangling her in front of that Biter, a final cleansing of this forest and of Fineshrine, of its charred remains and the ruins of what had been, forever.


	2. One

**. CHAPTER ONE . **

**I**

When a bear stands in a trap, it'll chew through flesh and bone to free itself; wolves will do this too, and if a Biter's flesh is rotting enough for it to split, then it'll rip it apart entirely and this is how it frees itself too. The bears and the wolves, they'd die because they'd end up limping along for a short while even if they'd lost a limb and too much blood, because of an instinctive need to survive. When humanity was still thriving and things like the undead weren't exactly a priority, they thought that if an animal was desperate enough to amputate itself with only sharp teeth and strong determination, then that was utterly cruel and they should put pads on the teeth of the trap to soften the pain and not cut through bone instead, therefore deterring them from doing something drastic. What traps we had, they'd been taken from the shed of a house nearby, with the memorabilia of a hunter all around - deer heads with shiny dead eyes and antlers and all that morbid stuff and he didn't seem to care if his traps hurt an animal or not. The teeth of his traps had been clean, sharp enough to slice through bone and butcher the skin, and that was what we thought they should be to catch a Biter and keep it there. I was not a bear or a wolf and thankfully not a Biter, not yet at least, but it had cut through my calf and sliced my bone all the same and I couldn't chew the flesh to free myself - but humans, we can heal. Physically, at least.

What you have to do is very simple; beneath the trap is a screw, which will twist and take the teeth from where they bite the flesh and free you. Then all you can see is blood and bone. You can't even twitch your toes because they're numb, the bone doesn't connect them and you can't quite feel anything below where the calf has been cut - this is a blessing in disguise, because all you can feel is the pain where the trap cut through the flesh. Only, you can't walk very well if you can't feel your foot. Which is why I had to tug the shoelaces from my shoes, putting them between my teeth when taking the trap apart. I'm not sobbing or screaming or even sniffling - I'm crying, I can't help myself, but it's a soft sort of crying. The silent sort, because this has to happen if I want to survive. Or at least, this is what I'm telling myself when taking the shoelaces from my mouth. What you do then is tie the shoelace around the ball of your foot, wrapping it so that you're holding either end in your hands and you can pull them towards you, tugging it until you hear the bone _pop _and slip beneath the skin again. This is when I'm really struggling not to scream, because the pain is razor sharp and _raw_. Then you should bandage it and find a flat splint of wood, small enough that you can tie the shoelaces around it to keep it straight and set the bone so it won't slip again, but I don't have anything but my cardigan to try and control that blood flow. I have to haul myself to my feet, dizzy and delirious, but defiantly staggering forward, heading for the hunter's house in the hopes of finding shelter. I'm afraid I'll fall or faint, becoming food for a Biter and when I find that dusty road I'm seeing spots of grey and everything is getting fuzzy.

The sky is a pale blue, almost purple, but I'm struggling with pulling my left leg along, my hands actually holding my thigh to lift it. I'm mumbling to myself, vaguely aware of how hoarse my voice is and how I'm rambling incoherent rubbish. I'm close to collapsing when a Biter bumbles from the bushes and stumbles mere feet from where I stand clutching the crippling wound that was my calf and trying to haul it forward, because it's bleeding and the bone could slip again. It charges towards me and swings its arms, gargling, getting closer and closer. I'm wondering if I can strangle it with shoelaces or something, but everything is spinning and I don't have the strength to even try.

The Biter glows - it has a golden halo so bright I have to shield my eyes from it because it stings, and its gurgling becomes harsh and heavy, a strange rumbling sound. I'm delirious, I decide. I've lost too much blood. I'm going to die and the coward Campbell still breathes, still survives. I'm the bear and the wolf that didn't stand on traps with padded teeth. I'm the bear and the wolf that stood on something unforgiving, with teeth sharp enough to slice bone. I'm the bear and the wolf that tried chewing its limbs to free itself in the hopes that it might live just that _little bit longer_.

"Fifty points if you can hit it between the eyes, little brother!"

Something embeds itself within the eyeball of this Biter, and it sort of shudders and then falls with a final _thump_ and reveals that blinding halo was really a motorcycle hiding the silhouettes of two men. I'm stumbling again, mumbling soft sobs and sniveling and trying to lift my leg to try and run because it's them, the men that shot my friends and left Fineshrine in fiery rubble and ruins - and one of them is laughing, loudly, his hand slapping his thigh. He claps his companion on the shoulder, cawing and cackling about his shot.

I fall, and my bone slips again; I can feel it slide from the skin and then I can see it, pale and poking from the flesh and my shoelaces slip too in a glorious spectacle of gore - they weren't enough to hold it, I need bandages and a wooden splint but it seems that isn't going to happen. Then I scream, the pain flaring and my fingers holding my shin and I can hear footsteps, closer and closer. Through tears I can tell they're standing with hands on hips, staring down and whispering to one another.

"What are you staring at?" I spat, figuring if they were gonna shoot me, I'd tell them exactly what I thought of them for what they'd done to Fineshrine, for what they'd done to my friends.

The taller man thought that this was the funniest thing he'd ever heard, howling with this scratchy sort of laughter and shaking his head slowly. "You hear that, baby brother? She speaks!"

His brother didn't find it very funny at all. "You bit?" he asked bluntly.

"No," I wheezed, a sudden pain shooting from my shin and making me shudder.

"You look rough for someone that isn't bit," the taller man said, as if he didn't quite believe me.

"Oh yeah?" I grumbled, giving him a glare. "And what's _your_ excuse?"

He was howling again, giving his brother's shoulder another slap. He was a grizzly kind of guy, this stranger, with grey stubble and a buzz-cut to boot. His eyes are pale, peering at my left leg and I see his laughter dying and his lips pursing. He reaches out as if he's gonna try and touch my leg, even though I'm rolling around on the ground and grimacing, but his brother slaps his hand away and mutters something like, _don't be stupid, ya moron_. This starts an argument between them, but I can barely hear them. I'm lying on a dusty road with two dip-shits shouting at one another about my leg, about how I might be bitten and I'm just hoping I don't die in the meantime. A blur bends down and I realise it's the younger man, and he says, "What happened to you then, if you weren't bit?"

"Bear-trap," I whispered dizzily. "Stood on a bear-trap."

"Well that was stupid," the older brother huffed from where he stood behind his baby brother, obviously still sore about whatever had been said during their fighting. "What'd you go and do that for?"

"I thought I'd test it out, make sure it works," I snapped sarcastically, "...I didn't _mean _to, you idiot, it was an _accident_, I was-...I was running from the fire, from the...the men that-..."

"The fire behind that forest?" the younger one said, nodding his head in the general direction I had dragged myself from. "That's what that was about, an ambush or somethin'?"

"Or something," I said, rolling towards him, eyes barely capable of finding his face because everything was still fuzzy.

"What's your name?" the older one asked, cocking his head and putting his hands on his hips again.

"Maisie Bellerose," I said, sounding slurred.

"I'm Merle Dixon," he replied. "That's my brother, _Darylena_."

"_Daryl_," the brother muttered, dipping his head as if he's embarrassed, but Merle was merely laughing as if he hadn't even heard. He seemed to find everything funny.

Daryl was thoughtful, taking in the things that his brother did not - my shoelaces, still loosely tied around my leg, the bone sticking from the gash, but he was staying silent. I thought he was handsome, much better than his brother. He was softer, but still somehow rough, because he'd seen the sort of things that gave him shadows beneath his blue eyes. His brother scuffed the dirt with his boot and it created a cloud of dust, and still the younger brother was staring at me, drifting towards my calf and then to my eyes again.

"I guess we ought'a stitch you up then."

**II**

In my groggy slumber, I saw glimpses of flames and a firing squad and falling shadows - I saw all of this and I was screaming, squirming, when a hand held itself against my mouth, holding me against something solid. My eyes were bleary and stinging from the sunlight squeezing itself through curtains of heavy cotton, and I understood I was in a kitchen and someone was trying to smother me, their dirty hand crushing hard against my lips and drawing blood. They said, _shut yer mouth or they'll hear us, ya stupid_- but I bite them and their words are cut short by harsh curses, my teeth tearing the skin enough for them to howl like a beast and take their hand from my mouth. I can finally focus my eyes and realise I'm resting on a table and it's Merle, sitting behind me, cradling his hand against his chest and he's got a temper because he raises his hand as if he's gonna to hit me, but then I hear Daryl growl, "Don't even think about it, Merle, she didn't mean it."

Merle's eyes are bloodshot and sore, as if he's been crying, but something tells me he hasn't. His lips form a thin line, his temper fading. We're in a kitchen that has wallpaper from the fifties, all flowers and the colour of soft cream - if it wasn't for the blood spatter and the dead Biter on the floor, it'd be almost cozy. Almost, even if Merle is muttering and his hands slither along my shoulders, holding me again and I'm about to ask why when Daryl pushes my bone into place again and I'm squirming, squealing and screeching. I can't help myself, even with Merle hissing at me to stay silent because they saw "_them dead bastards_" in the garden of this house we're hiding in. My eyes roll, drinking in the dust dancing in the sunlight of the kitchen and the crushed cans sitting on the counter, wondering if this is where the brothers have been staying all along.

Daryl doesn't tell me that he's about to thread a needle through my flesh and stitch it together using string that seems too thick for this sort of thing, but I feel it. I feel it and fight against the force of Merle holding me down, cursing him and cursing Daryl and cursing myself, too, even when my vision was fading and Merle's voice was echoing in my ears, my words becoming whispers.

**III**

Merle viciously rips apart the flesh of a bunny rabbit with his teeth, chomping and chewing loudly, his elbows balancing on his knees where he sits in an armchair across from me. He isn't very graceful, this grizzly man, burping and belching. I'm lying on a sofa, staring at him from beneath a blanket, feeling sore and sad and trying to smother it all. Merle's eyes flicker to find mine and he bites another strip from the spine of the bunny, not caring that spittle dribbles along his chin. I burrow beneath the blanket because the sight of him makes me queasy, but Merle doesn't seem to mind what I do, if it means I don't bother him. When we met, he had been in a different kind of mood, all husky laughs and lots of hollering, but in the small amount of time we'd been sitting together, he hadn't said much apart from _Daryl's keeping us safe, don't you worry_. What that meant exactly, I couldn't quite discern because that meant Daryl was either dealing with the '_dead_ _bastards_' Merle had mentioned earlier, or he was simply standing in the garden with a gun - or rather, a crossbow. I'd seen it when they'd left me lying on the sofa, mumbling to myself and squirming in pain, suffering through a feverish slumber.

"_Mais-_ie _Belle_-rose," Merle said all of a sudden, and I peeked at him from beneath the blanket. "I must tell you, _Mais-_ie, my brother and I were quite impressed by your, uh..._brave _attempt at fixing yer bones with just a pair of shoelaces."

Merle was mocking me with a sneering smile, snickering. I was staying perfectly still, but my eyes told him exactly what I thought, how I was warning him not to push it and my head hit my pillow with a huff of annoyance. Except Merle either didn't understand he was upsetting me, or he just didn't care - and I knew which guess was the right one by how his eyes trailed towards my left leg, which was still hidden beneath the blanket.

"Gon' be quite the scar," he murmured. "Nasty thing, that leg of yours. This uh, _bear-trap _you stood in - got you good, it did. Straight through the bone. You'll live - I mean, if you don't get infected and we don't got to amputate that leg - but you'll walk a little funny. Hope you aren't vain, sweetheart."

"Well I guess I should always stand beside you then, shouldn't I? At least then I'll still be a prettier sight than you are."

Merle grinned, baring his teeth and giving me a shrug. "Well who says you'll have me to stand beside, little lady? What makes you think my brother and I aren't waitin' to move on out a' this shithole without you? We got you stitched up, lady, helped fix that bone a' yours, but that don't mean we're hanging around to watch you take baby steps all over again like we're your momma, nuh-uh. We don't owe you a damn _thing_, not one _damn _thing. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, _you _owe _us_. Those are _our _bandages around that leg of yours, _our _blanket keepin' you warm, _our _food in your belly. Not yours."

"And here I was thinking you had a heart," I grumbled sarcastically, shifting beneath the blanket that apparently I was blessed by Merle Dixon to even have brushing against my skin.

"Oh I got a heart, honey, and it's beating and I'd like to keep it that way," he replied. "Dragging dead weight like you around, now that's foolish, you'd only slow us down, much as it might hurt to hear it."

Merle Dixon had said something that made my heart hammer, like a hummingbird that was trapped in my chest and trying to free itself by banging against my ribcage. And boy, had it _hurt_. He had said _dead weight _and my brain swelled with thoughts of Myla, of how she had been afraid of falling behind in a hurry. She might have been one of the shadows shot by a firing squad, though my faithful heart hoped she had escaped somehow, but I was blind because I didn't know who had been shot and who hadn't. Dead weight or not, most of them had died and I didn't want Merle Dixon realizing he'd hit a nerve - but he'd sensed something anyhow, because I hadn't said anything to him and he saw my stinging eyes I suppose.

He stood, tossing the carcass of that bunny rabbit with the rest of the rubbish that was all around this house and then he said, "I'm just telling you what you already know. And you do know it, don't you? Because one way or another, Daryl and I are gonna survive this shit, sweetheart. Whether you do or you don't, that don't matter to us, not one bit. You gotta hear it. You know you do."

Then he left, leaving me to cry from a pain that wasn't brought on by the ache in my leg.

**IV**

I was afraid of the Dixon Brothers even if I didn't really have reason to be; we sat in silence, slurping cans of cold beans which they had been gracious enough to share - well, _Daryl _was gracious, Merle had been grouchy about it. They weren't with the men that had taken Fineshrine or shot my friends, I could tell that much. What I was afraid of was what would happen, if they might hurt me or something - it was stupid, because they probably wouldn't have helped me if that was their plan, and I suppose I was being a bit paranoid. Daryl was sitting on the floor, Merle in his armchair again and I was still lying on the sofa, leg safely hidden beneath blankets because I was sort of embarrassed by it even if it was in bandages. It _was _hideous - I'd seen it when Daryl was still tying bandages around it. A gash with raw, red ridges. I had seen enough to believe in Merle's words when he said I'd never walk right again, that'd I'd always hobble or heave my leg along like I had the night we'd found one another. Daryl, he didn't say much, and that was both a blessing and a bitch of a thing to deal with because I was wondering if he was just waiting for the moment he and Merle could bail and leave me with a bum leg. Merle was moody again, not very happy that I'd been hogging their dwindling supplies -_ their _food, _their_ bandages, _their _blankets as he was fond of saying - but Daryl had not said anything about it. He simply sat shovelling spoonfuls of cold beans into his mouth, pausing only when Merle threw his to the floor with a hard _thud _that made me flinch.

"Well, Daryl and I, we're gonna get going in the morning," he said, clapping his hands together and taking a stand.

The can of cold beans in my hand had been forgotten, my spoon falling from my mouth and plopping into the pale orange slop with a _pop_. "You are?"

"Yes ma'am, we are," he smiled, but his eyes slipped from me to Daryl, and that smile died a sudden death. "Daryl_, _don't you even _dare_-..."

Daryl was very calm, putting his can on the floor and then staring at his brother without a flicker of fear even though Merle's fists were clenching and his jaw was tensing. "We can't just leave her Merle, she can't even walk with that leg, what if one of the dead bastards get in? She can't do anything to defend herself."

"Why's that _our _problem? _She _got herself hurt, it's her fault! I ain't responsible for stupidity-..."

"That's a surprise because you seem to have enough of it," I spat at Merle, and he took a menancing step forward. I doubt he'd have really done anything, even if Daryl hadn't stood and raised a hand to press against Merle's chest to push him away, because he didn't seem that angry about what I'd said. It was more of a threat, his method of trying to make me shut my mouth.

"She'll die, Merle," Daryl murmured softly, as if it was only for his brother to hear. But I heard him. I heard him loud and clear.

"Everyone dies," he scoffed. "It don't mean we gotta die with her."

"You don't mean that," Daryl replied, his eyebrows stitching together in something akin to disappointment.

"It's _not_ our problem," Merle growled, standing uncomfortably close to Daryl so he could get right in his face, "...but then again, you always were a _pussy_, weren't you, Darylena? You gotta be tough, if you wanna survive, you gotta be a _man_, if you wanna _survive_! _She_..." - he paused to point at me - "..._she _ain't gon' survive."

"Yes I am," I hissed, because I felt I had to defend myself somehow. Merle had a talent for making my eyes burn with tears I didn't want to fall, not in front of him and his brother. "I'll make it with or without you."

"You see!" Merle hollered, holding his hands in the air and clapping them as if he was cheering.

"She's only saying that because she don't want to admit she needs help," Daryl muttered, and Merle's hands fell to his sides in annoyance. "She's stubborn, like you, moron."

"I didn't realise you were such a _hero_, little brother," Merle drawled, pretending to wipe his eyes as if seeing Daryl for the first time - he had a flair for the dramatics, apparently, but Daryl wasn't finding it very amusing. He was staring his brother down, tense and defiant. Merle had this cruel smile, like he thought Daryl was being cute and he was going to crush him for it. "I'll tell you what - I'll tell you how it is, how it's gon' _be_. We'll take her with us, and she'll slow us down. Another mouth to feed, and with that leg we'll have to find bandages for her too. We'll drag her along even if she can't _do _anything to help us out, and she'll be complainin' about the pain, and you'll feel bad for her and then we'll have to find pills for her -..."

"You seem to have plenty," Daryl grunted.

I swear Merle froze as if he'd been slapped. Even Daryl, in the silence that fell after what he'd said, cast his gaze to the floor as if regretting what he'd said. Merle, he was floundering between being mad and being surprised by Daryl's words, but then his eyes slid towards where I was staring at him and then, suddenly, he gave Daryl a shove. My throat tightened, watching Daryl stumble backwards as if he'd expected this of Merle and this was what he'd been waiting for, because he didn't do anything even when Merle kept shoving him, saying things like _you're real tough Darylena _and _you playing the good guy all of a sudden, is that what's going on_?

"Stop it!"

Merle, his hands were still holding Daryl's shirt, but he heard my words and gave him a final shove before turning to face me - he was tall and threatening, given that I was still sitting on the sofa. I didn't flinch when I saw his fists clench again, because he was deflating as if he was realising all he had said to his brother and how Daryl was rubbing his chest and how I was staring at him in horror. He marched for the kitchen and we heard the door slam, which was stupid and dangerous if a Biter was around, but Daryl didn't seem too worried. He bent down to grab his cans of beans and then collapsed onto the armchair Merle had been sitting on with an unceremonious grunt, eating as if nothing had even happened.

I was wondering what exactly Daryl had meant by Merle having enough pills for the pain I was feeling, because I hadn't been given any if he did, not that I'd take them because Merle didn't exactly _like _me, to put it lightly. Perhaps they'd taken pills from a pharmacy - but then I thought about Merle's mood-swings, the high he'd been riding when we met on that dirt road, his bloodshot eyes and bad temper - had he been taking something? Daryl was simmering in an angry silence, and if what I was thinking was the truth then I didn't want to say anything, because from what I'd seen it was quite obvious he and Merle hadn't really spoken about what pills Merle might be taking and it had been bothering Daryl to the point where he couldn't help himself from spewing words Merle didn't want to hear.

"I'm sorry," I said softly, fiddling with the fabric of my blanket, feeling bashful. "I didn't mean to make you and your brother fight."

Daryl grunted, apparently deciding whether or not it was worth saying anything. Then he sighed, shrugging, "Weren't your fault. We've been fighting anyhow."

All I could say was, "Oh."

_Oh_. How stupid I must seem, with all the words I could possibly pluck from my brain, and all I could say was _oh_.

"We'll help you fix your leg, get you walking again," Daryl said, his voice low and gravelly like his brother's. "Then you're on your own."

"Thank you. I mean that Daryl, thank you, I'd have died without you."

"Whatever," he grumbled, but his flesh had become a flush sort of colour and he was curiously incapable of looking at anything but the can of beans in his hands. In fact, I was almost falling asleep when he suddenly said, "What happened to you anyway?"

"I told you," I said sleepily, "..I stood on a-..."

"Bear-trap, yeah, I know that," he said, and I shifted on the sofa to stare at him as he spoke. "I meant - I meant at the house, or whatever. Where the fire was."

"Oh." There it was again, that stupid _oh_. I swallowed nervously, and he noticed this, switching his gaze to the can of beans again because he seemed to understand I was struggling with my words. He was a patient man, and I only wished his brother was too. In a soft whisper I told Daryl all about Fineshrine, even the forest and what I had to do because I figured he'd seen exactly what I had and worse, and when I told him of Elijah I couldn't help but cry - something Daryl wasn't really comfortable with by his fidgeting, but that he sat through because I couldn't help myself, the words were spilling from my mouth without fail. When I spoke of Rose my voice was hard, cold even.

When I had finished, Daryl sat and thought about things for a while, stirring the can of beans with quiet contemplation. "Rose Campbell, huh?"

I nodded. "Ahuh."

"What a bitch."

It was so blunt and blatant that he made me laugh, and this surprised him - his eyes snapped towards mine as if he was startled, expecting pain or panic or something terrible to be happening but he found only laughter. And he smiled too. It was shy and uncertain as if he hadn't smiled in a while, and I'm betting he hadn't, but it was a smile and I thought he had a sweet sort of smile, this Daryl Dixon.

**V**

All I had was stitches, a splint of wood and tape keeping my bones together beneath the bandages. If I had to pee, Daryl had to help me hop to the bathroom that they had - or rather, the bushes in the garden, which was a bit humiliating but Daryl stood staring straight at the gate surrounding us while I did what I had to. It was almost always Daryl that did this, apart from the times when he was hunting and if I couldn't hold it in then I had to hop along with _Merle_, which was hardly delightful because all he did was stand behind and watch my wobbling hobble without helping at all. I mean, he'd catch me if I was falling, but he'd crush my arm in his grip and give me a shove to get me standing again. One morning, I'm limping along with my hands pressing against the walls of the hallway to support myself, sweating and struggling with my leg, and I've had to pee for hours but I didn't said anything because Daryl wasn't around. Merle, he was taking slow steps behind, surprisingly silent for such a smartass and something told me that Merle didn't quite trust me - perhaps it was the gun in his hands or the hostile glares he gave sometimes. Then came the hurdle I always had trouble with - two steps at the door, very small but still a struggle because I couldn't exactly bend my knee with the bone of my calf being delicate and all, but I could do it if I clung to the wall and sort of collapsed against it - but it wasn't easy.

"Hurry it along, Peaches, we ain't got all day. You gon' piss your pants before you get down to that garden - should'a asked Daryl to find us some diapers for you 'stead 'a food."

"That's funny, I was gonna ask you if I could borrow a pair, given you're such a big baby about everything anyway," I grimaced, putting my burning forehead against the wall and hoping the sudden bolt of pain might pass.

"You should be grateful I'm helping you," he grumbled, shifting his gun in his hands. "I ain't a nurse to nobody."

"Probably because you'd look hideous in the uniform," I muttered.

He grinned. "What about you, Peaches? How would _you _look in that sort'a uniform? I can imagine it now - I'm lying on the bed, all ready and waitin' for ya, and then you come limpin' in on that leg and suddenly I ain't feelin' so hot. Fact, I'm feeling like I ought'a be running _from _you 'stead 'a _towards _you."

"Well then take another look around the trailer park, I'm sure you'll find someone better who isn't missing too many teeth and who aren't related to you by blood - though that'd hardly stop you even if they were, now would it?" I hissed, taking on those two steps and making it without Merle's help.

When I did finally reach the bushes, I hid and had to hike up my dress and do my business with much difficulty because I hadn't anything to balance myself with. Then I tried hopping on one foot towards where Merle _should _have been standing, but instead I'm staring at bristling blades of grass and the body of a Biter that'd been shot with an arrow. _That bastard. That __bastard_, is all I'm thinking when trying to get to the house again. It takes a bloody lot longer to hop and balance without a helping hand, even if it _is_ a reluctant one. The steps at the door are torture and I'm panting, pressing my lips together and trying my hardest to pull myself into the house without letting him hear me whimpering whenever the pain hits.

I find him reclining on the sofa where I usually lay, his left leg resting on the pillow Daryl had given me despite Merle's protests about '_pampering_ _the damn girl_', and he's smiling as if he's been waiting a while for me to make it to the house. Which, I suppose, he has.

"Merle, please move." I'm holding the doorframe, balancing on one leg.

His eyes widen, pretending to be surprised and then he was leaning forward to put his hands around his left leg. "Oh, I would, but would you believe I've hurt my leg? Can't even stand on it. Looks like I'm gon' have to sit and wait for it to heal."

The ache in my calf was vibrating, and with a very calm voice, I said, "Merle, this isn't funny."

His mouth fell open. "Well, I am _surprised _at you Miss Bellerose, I thought _you _of _all people _would have compassion for a poor man in his time of need!"

"_Move_, Merle."

"Is that how you spoke to your old gang? Making _demands _and such?"

"Shut up," I said weakly, having a hard time standing with my leg hurting so much. I was pressing my forehead against the palm of my hand, aching and angry with him for being petty. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, but I think I do," he drawled, still sneering. "You thought you'd take us for a pair 'a _suckers_, and steal everything we got because you're like the injured little lamb that escaped the slaughter, ain't ya?"

"I'm not stealing from you-..."

"But you'd like to, I'd bet. _Oh_, I'd bet you'd like to. I ain't falling for it, no sir. I got my eye on you, little girl. Don't you forget it."

I was hardly hearing him, sweat beading along my temple and my hands shaking badly. I wasn't supposed to be standing for this long, Daryl had told me that many times, not when the bone was still trying to heal itself. In a frail voice, I told him, "I'm not trying to steal from you, Merle. I'm not a thief and I'm not trying to trick you. I'll leave. Soon as my leg heals, I'll leave."

Merle didn't say anything, but for once he wasn't trying to rattle me, staring as if he was considering what I'd said - and this was the most he'd ever resembled Daryl, when his mouth was shut. Then he stood, strolling towards me with a smile. "I'll hold you to that, sister."


	3. Two

**. CHAPTER TWO .**

**I**

Slowly, Daryl peels the bandage from my leg and all that I see is a bundle of blood, pus and a small pale slit where the bone shyly peeks through; he is methodical and I am a mess, squirming when he pours something transparent along my leg and it seems to sizzle, but Daryl doesn't say anything to soothe my whimpering and simply pats it dry with tissues. I bite my fist, a bad habit I can't fight even when my teeth bruise the flesh. I feel grateful for his help and guilty for it, too. Merle is snoring in his bedroom and I wonder if Daryl chose to clean my wound once his brother was asleep because he was afraid Merle might say something cruel - and whether he was afraid of that cruel something being said to him or to me, well, I couldn't quite decide. Daryl has bandages hidden in a duffel bag and he hauls this from behind the shelves across from us, should anyone try to steal from us. He trails his finger along the stitches to assure himself they aren't torn or anything and still I flinch from the unforgiving sting that spikes through my skin and his eyes flicker upwards, his lips twitching in something akin to an apology.

"Merle wants us gone in the morning," Daryl mutters, balancing on his haunches with the bandages in his hands. When I stay silent, he glances at me as if gauging what was wrong when he finds me fiddling with my fingers, and I hear him shift and then sigh. "_All _of us. Find somewhere different. Safer, I guess."

"Good." I shuffle beneath my blankets, still staring at him when he leans forward to fix the bandages around my leg. "Daryl?"

"What?"

"It's hideous, isn't it?"

"No," he said, without even pausing to ponder what I said. "No, it ain't hideous. It's healing. It'll scar..." - he stood, tossing the leftover bandages in the bag and turning towards the armchair where he slept across from me most nights - "...but the way I see it, a scar is better than a bite and it's better than being one o' them, ain't it? You survived something bad, something most of your friends didn't. You got a scar and you got a small limp, but you didn't lose your leg and you didn't lose your life, Maisie. Ain't that enough for you?"

I was feeling flush, embarrassed even. Daryl threw the bag behind the shelf with a small huff and I was hoping I hadn't upset him. He flopped into the sagging armchair that gave a soft sigh as if it was deflating, letting his legs dangle over the edge, holding his hands behind his head and closing his eyes.

"I didn't mean to seem vain, Daryl," I murmured quietly, feeling compelled to defend myself somehow. "It's just-...Well, it's just Merle said-..."

"Don't listen to Merle," Daryl muttered, without opening his eyes. "My brother's got scars too, but they were his doing - he got them doing stupid shit, brawling in bar-fights and stuff. Stupid shit. And he _says _stupid shit too."

"Oh, I know he does," I mumbled, mostly to myself. A little bit louder, I stated, "He just hates me, that's all."

"He don't trust easy. He never has. Don't take it personal."

We were almost falling asleep by the time I spoke again, timid and tired.

"Daryl?"

"_What_?" he grumbled, his voice sounding hazy with sleep.

"Thank you."

Peeping at his silhouette from beneath my blankets, burrowing myself against my pillow, I saw him shift and then heard him sigh. "Don't mention it."

**II**

We stood in a house that was hardly built, that was a slab of cold concrete and cut wires hanging from the ceiling; it was raining heavily and we were shivering, having taken shelter in this hovel, afraid because we had seen Biters stumbling around in a small herd, with about ten staggering towards the road. I was leaning against the wall, feeling a cold droplet of rain running along my cheekbone and curling my soggy cardigan around my shoulders in the hopes of feeling warmth, staring at Merle through a curtain of wet hair and feeling a certain sort of loathing for him again. He was stomping around, stubborn and huffing about the stupidity of staying in this house. I slid slowly along the wall, wiping rainwater from my skin with my sleeves and resting my leg because it was aching from the small bit of limping I did when Daryl went in the house to deal with Biters and I had to balance by myself. Daryl was somewhat grumpy too, growling about the wood being too wet to burn. He was soaking too, but he was stubborn about it - the only thing I had seen him and Merle share was this vexatious stubbornness, as if admitting _I'm cold _was simply too much for them to cope with, that it meant being too vulnerable. His eyes slid towards where I sat shivering and he ran his hands through his hair, sighing heavily.

"You should sit," I said, teeth chattering.

"Yeah, and lose a finger or two to frostbite because I can't make a damn fire? I don't think so," he spat, surprising me with the venom in his voice.

"Better than losing a leg," I said with a shy shrug, hoping he'd remember what he'd said.

He did. I saw it in the sagging of his shoulders. "Is it hurtin' you?"

Daryl had a talent for asking this as if he couldn't care less if my leg was hurting or not - it was a nonchalant shrug or a steely stare, this sort of hardness that he'd employ when he thought something was too emotional for him. It _was _hurting, but I suppose I was suffering from being around the brothers too much, because I was being stubborn too.

"No, it isn't," I said firmly, but he didn't seem to believe it, staring at the damp bandages with a frown.

"I'm tellin' you, brother, we should'a blazed through them bastards," Merle hollered from the hallway. He came marching in, moody and mean. You could tell by how he was staring at Daryl that he was hoping for a fight, because he disagreed with his brother about staying in this house and he was hungry and tired from trudging through the rain for what he thought was a bit of rubble and debris.

"With the gas almost gone? Get ourselves stranded on the road, in the rain, with no food or water or even somewhere to sleep?" Daryl grumbled, hands on his hips and glancing down at the wood that wouldn't burn for him.

"Oh, because we got ourselves a real pretty place instead, didn't we?"

"It's shelter from the rain, Merle, it isn't-..." I tried, but he wasn't having it.

"Ain't nobody askin' you for _your _opinion, little lady," he growled, giving me a harsh glare. "You just sit there and thank your lucky stars I ain't tossed you out a' this _shelter _you're so fond of and into that rain, alright? This don't concern you."

"Merle-.." Daryl began, but his brother was bent on saying whatever it was that was in that brain of his, if he even had one.

"I figure we should'a _tried _to get even a little bit further, because we're gon' starve if we stay around the woods. You catch a rabbit or two and call that a feast? Hell, that ain't enough to feed Peaches over there which seems to be your priority, instead of your _own fucking brother_! I say we head towards the city-..."

"We left the city because it was crawling with them!" Daryl snapped, and we all knew who he meant when he said '_them_'.

"They were bombin' the bastards when we left!" Merle hissed. "We don't know how many are still there and we don't know how many are _here_, walking around them woods. Way I see it, it's a gamble we gotta take because we stay here any longer and we might as well start diggin' our own graves."

"Great, let's start with yours," I muttered, and his eyes met mine, flashing with fury.

"Shut your mouth, _Maisie Bellerose_," he sneered, saying my name as if it was making him nauseous. "Let the _men_ decide this, lady!"

"Oh, you are such a sexist-..."

"If I say something you don't like, sweetie, then you're free to hobble on out'a here and fucking _starve _for all I care, fact, why _don't _you do that? Ain't nobody stopping you, go ahead, see how long you last with that leg 'a yours, you ungrateful-..."

"Shut up!"

This explosion from Daryl was enough to silence us, enough to make us shift our eyes from one another in shame, but Daryl was staring us down without mercy. He ran his hands along his face again, and I felt horrible for making him angry. I had never heard him shout like that, with such frustration, such finality, because then he said, "We'll stay in this house and we'll sleep here. Because we ain't got nothing better and we should be grateful we even found it. In the morning, I'll find food, even if it is _just a rabbit_" - he gave Merle a scathing glare, obviously offended by that - "and _then _we'll decide what we're doing. Understood?"

Merle, probably stunned by how his baby brother was bossing him around, tried salvaging his pride by nodding as if that was _exactly_ what he had been thinking all along, like that was the very thing he'd been trying to explain and Daryl was just voicing it for him. Daryl strode past him, towards where he had hidden the truck between the trees, returning with blankets and tossing them to us without a word. I took my soggy cardigan off, stripping to my underwear and wrapping myself in the plush blanket - they did the same, all of us silent as if Daryl was our parent and we his scolded children, watching him grab our clothes and taking them into the hallway to hang on the banister of the stairs in the hopes of drying them.

"I'll take first watch," he said firmly, and we didn't dare disagree, nodding in a daze.

In the morning, he did find a rabbit. In fact, he found three and he slaughtered them all with arrows and anger.

**III**

Merle wasn't always mean; I feel I should tell you this, because when we fought I found it hard to grasp what it was about him that Daryl thought was good enough to warrant his brother's behaviour, and sometimes I saw it. When limping through the forest with my leg, he'd find berries and show them to me and then he'd say something like, _don't ever eat that, Maisie, not if you don't want your ass itching for about a month after_. Small offerings of solidarity that, while they didn't happen often, told me that Daryl hadn't been kidding when he said his brother didn't trust easily - and I was eager, greedy even, to gobble the small glimpses of goodwill that he gave, given we'd been hiking around Georgia together for what I thought was an eternity, but that they said was only about two months. What I'm trying to say is, being with the brothers was not all bad, even if Merle had a meanness to him that meant he could hurt you with his words, words that could cause you to shrivel and become something small. We didn't always fight. I thought I should tell you that.

Daryl - well, Daryl had this meanness to him too, but he could swallow his words and smother them and stay silent when Merle couldn't. He couldn't help his coldness when something came too close to his heart, but sometimes I thought that wasn't because of what was happening - the Biters and this struggle to survive, I mean. He'd been surviving something different. Something that was still a struggle even without the Biters and the bloodshed. He had this anger rumbling in his belly, always bubbling within him, you could tell by his temper. He could swallow his words and bury them deep, but that didn't mean they didn't spew from his mouth whenever the fury that fed him became too much and freed itself. His calmness could cloud that dormant temper if you weren't careful, and you could become collateral damage when he couldn't contain it.

If I'm telling you that, then I should tell you that I had been in a shell with them, too. A shell in which I could shelter myself, because I had this - this _fear_, I guess, because I could fall asleep with the brothers and in the morning, if they weren't around, I had this agonising horror, whispers in my head that I'd been abandoned. Then Merle would emerge from the bushes, saying something gross like, _I just had a hell of a piss, Peaches_ and I'd feel guilty for believing they'd left me behind. I couldn't help myself - if Daryl had been swallowing his meanness, then I'd been swallowing my fear, and that meant I had to wonder when it'd find a way to free itself, too.

**IV**

I had to bathe myself with the brothers, which I suppose seems very bizarre. I stood in my panties and matching bra, which had small daisies dotting its navy blue cotton, basking in the blazing sunshine and the cool water caressing my calves. You could hear birds chirping and the river rumbling - and then, slicing through that tranquility, a tsunami of icy water and a wail of infernal laughter from Merle Dixon himself, who had leapt from a high cliff and hit the water hard enough for it to prickle my flesh and force me to squeal, holding my hands around myself in a sort of hug to protect myself. Daryl stood nearby at the edge of the river, eyes sweeping the forest for the slightest rustle of the bushes because a Biter might be rumbling through them, but I could see him cursing Merle beneath his breath for being too noisy. I had been shy about bathing around them, mostly because I thought Merle might leer and I was a little embarrassed about anyone seeing my leg without bandages, but he was almost childish about it all, crashing through the water or becoming a cannonball to splash us. We'd been taking turns because of close calls with Biters and also because of my leg, the fear that I might fall, with my balance still being somewhat wobbly. I was healing, but I had a hatred for even glancing at that gory stitching scarring my leg, especially when I had to strip the darn bandages and _let it breathe_, as Daryl said - as if it was _alive_.

Merle was swimming towards me, and in my head I was humming the '_Jaws_' theme, just _waiting_ for him to try something. "Hell-_o_ Peaches!"

"Merle."

"What's the matter, Maisie? Tryin' not to look at big ol' Merle? Tryin' to _preserve _your innocence?" he purred, but he was grinning, playing games again.

"I thought you were repulsed by my scar," I replied, trying not to smile.

"Well, I reckon if I sort'a hold my hand, _like this_-..." - three fingers, folding to cover his left eye, then craning his head at an angle - "...then I can ignore that itty-bitty little cut."

"That's all you'd need? I'd need a blindfold if I was anywhere _near _you like that - hell, I'd need something even stronger. Sensory deprivation, that's what I'd need."

"That mouth a' yours might get you in trouble someday," he roared, chuckling loudly. It always felt like Merle was permanently _loud_, like he couldn't possibly contain himself.

"Oh, it already has. It _definitely _has."

I left him, hearing his explosive laughter again, plodding towards the edge and limping along to where I left my poor dress with its stains of dirt and blood. I found Daryl still stood staring at the forest, and I sat behind him, slowly shrouding my scar beneath folds of bandages. Merle was still splashing around, singing to himself. I was squeezing my hair, ringing it tightly and feeling the water trickling along my flesh in ticklish rivers, making me shiver. Then I shook my head, slapping myself with strands of hair still heavy with water, and Daryl said, "You're like a wet dog."

"Charming."

"I didn't mean-...I meant dogs, when they're wet, they shake like that is all. I didn't - forget it."

I was stifling a smile, pretending to pout instead. "You're saying I'm a bitch, is that it?"

With his skin a splotchy scarlet, he spat, "I ain't callin' you anythin', I jus'-..." - but my smile was my betrayal. I was trying to guess what he was thinking, which was always a gamble with Daryl. Merle was always obvious, with that mouth of his blabbing everything in his brain without thinking it through. With Daryl, you had to do a little digging. I saw his shoulders relax, his eyes roll, shaking his head - but that didn't mean anything, because he dipped his head as if he was holding something in. Then I saw his smile. That shy, fleeting smile I was becoming so fond of.

"Where will we go?"

"That's a hard question," he said quietly.

"No, it's a simple question. It's the answer that's hard."

He shrugged, staring at the horizon. "I guess we'll do what Merle was talkin' 'bout. Head towards the city, because we ain't findin' shit out here, and we don't got that much food left, or bandages for your leg and we might find medicine, too, if we're lucky."

I suppose that meant the pills he had accused Merle of having really weren't the healing sort, and I had a small niggling worry tumbling around in my tummy when I thought about that, but I smiled at Daryl, nodding at him. "Okay, the city it is."

"You think you can make it that far?"

"Of course," I replied cockily. "Personally I thought my limp was becoming a little bit more graceful, you know, like I was _gliding _almost."

"Ahuh. Well, you tell me that tomorrow morning when we gotta do some walking," he murmured.

"How dare you! I can handle myself, I don't _need_ you to judge me, Dixon, I can-..."

"Maisie?"

"What?" I huffed, holding my wet hair and giving it a harsh squeeze again in my anger.

"_Now _you're being a bitch."

It was my turn to stare at him as if I'd misheard him, with my skin a blotchy beetroot and my lower lip falling in surprise, hearing him trying to hold in his laughter and failing miserably - then, when I was readying myself for a smart retort, I realised it was the first time I'd heard him laugh that loudly, and I held my tongue because I thought he had a lovely laugh, all husky and low. _This is Daryl Dixon_, I thought. _This is Daryl Dixon, and I like him a lot_.

Sometimes you forgot, with all the horrors we'd seen and how stoic he was, that he was still human beneath it all - and this was simply a beautiful reminder of something I hoped I'd never forget again.


	4. Three

**A/N: **A massive thank you to everybody who reviewed, followed and favourited this story! :)

**. CHAPTER THREE . **

**I**

In the humid heat of Georgia, I could wear swishing skirts that didn't bother my bandages, but we had to find something better for the winter or I'd lose a limb to frostbite. Daryl said that what we were doing in this house was scavenging, but sifting through the drawers of strangers made me feel very much like a vulture, if I'm being honest with you. I could hear Merle crashing through the cupboards below, singing to himself again. We'd been driving towards the city for hours when we'd seen a derelict house with a car hidden behind the bushes in its garden and it was Merle who grumbled that we should sleep in it and hope the car had gas we could siphon in the morning. The house still had photographs of a smiling, pleasant family - handsome father resting a loving hand on the shoulder of his adoring wife where she sat in front of him with a soft smile, their rascal son and darling daughter smiling brightly beside them - and their clothes hadn't been completely stolen, which was a surprise. Dust particles did pirouettes in the sunlight slipping through the curtains, scattering when I cut through them to stuff the adoring wife's pretty dresses, coats and cardigans in my duffel bag - _after all, she don't need 'em_, Daryl had said nonchalantly. Daryl was breezing through the husband's closet without much care, crinkling his shirts and tossing his suits around, and I really couldn't help myself, hissing, "Daryl! Don't ruin them!"

He was holding a creamy shirt in his hands, sneering a cool, "I already told you, Maisie, he ain't gon' miss it. He's dead."

"Even if he _is _- which we don't know for sure - we still can't trash his house. We're already stealing from him, isn't that bad enough?"

"What, you think this is like what Rose did to your people? Stealing food from them or whatever?"

I don't really believe Daryl meant to say that or for it to hurt, because he realised his blunder by how my skin became a burning scarlet - even the tips of my ears, which was horribly embarrassing. I was angry with him anyway, even if he hadn't meant it. Even if he had said it without the slightest twinge of empathy. "Or whatever, yeah."

I could hear his persistent scraping of the clothes-hanger along the railing in the closet, albeit not quite as harsh as it had been, but I was staring at the smiling photograph of that rosy family again. Merle was still banging around, because he was in that sort of mood again, all bright and benevolent. The wife from that photograph had a pearl necklace and earrings dangling from a pretty doll standing on her dresser, a mannequin in a model-pose with a slim hand resting on her waist, the other raised with her palm flat, smiling smugly. I thought everything she had was too beautiful, especially the dainty dresses in my duffel bag, too feminine and fancy for what I'd be doing - bashing in the brains of Biters, limping along behind the Dixon Brothers with a bum leg.

"I tried wearing a suit once," Daryl said suddenly, almost shyly. "I mean-... It weren't this expensive or anything but I-...I was tryin' get a job. It was stupid - I _felt _stupid, but I needed the money. Merle was in trouble - again. With the sort'a guys that'd do bad things to him if they didn't get what they wanted. And I thought, I could clean up my act and help him out at the same time - two birds with one stone sort'a thing. So I borrowed a suit and it was all dirty and scruffy but it didn't matter. It was in this office buildin', fanciest I'd ever seen, all these guys walkin' around with briefcases and looking at me like they thought they should call security or somethin'. I felt so fucking _dumb _but I did it anyway. I was desperate and too young to realise they wouldn't give me a chance, that they thought I was a piece 'a shit before I even said one word because I didn't act like them, because I couldn't _be _them. I thought a suit would hide it. I felt like they were laughin' at me before I even made it to the elevators. I never told Merle."

I had to imagine Daryl, young and yearning, in this scruffy suit he spoke of. It was hard, because when you saw Daryl, it was all rough edges, a reluctant enigma - as if he had been born with the Biters, as if he'd _always _been surviving this shit. He didn't seem to match this measly boy in my head, swallowed whole by the swanky chair he sat in, struggling to stifle his twangy accent and fit in with the businessmen flitting by him. I was feeling as if he'd hit me with a freight train it hurt that much to see him in my mind's eye, hiding his embarrassment in the elevators.

It was his apology. This small, embarrassing secret. It was his gift, that he gave because he was trying to show that he was not always this harsh - that he had hurt, too, and that this harshness was what the world had given him, even before the gore and the Biters.

"Did the men beat Merle?" I asked him quietly.

"Bad enough for him to borrow the money from his girlfriend at the time to make them ease off a little," Daryl grumbled. "Bianca or somethin' like that - never did pay her back, even though he promised her. Eventually she got tired 'a his excuses and broke the windshield of his car, spat at him, and left. Never did see her again."

"I don't blame her," I laughed, and I could hear him chuckling too, though it was soft. As if he felt bad for finding his brother's fight with Bianca funny. "I prefer you the way you are, for what it's worth. I can't imagine you with a crossbow and killing Biters in a suit - it doesn't feel right."

He held a very plush blue suit against his chest, smothering it with his hand and smirking playfully. "You don't think I can pull this off, huh?"

"No, sir." I was grinning stupidly at him, giggling too, which was something I hadn't done in - well, I couldn't remember exactly when I had giggled like such a schoolgirl about something this silly. It was wonderful. I spun around, taking Adoring Wife's pearl earrings and pressing them against my ears, then turning to him again. "What d'you think about these then?"

He whistled, smirking. "Real pretty."

I carefully put the pearls down, hiding my burning blush from Daryl behind a curtain of sandy brown hair, but he was already tossing the suit into the closet again anyway. My heart was thumping furiously in my chest, my skin flush with a burning heat, clumsy fingers fiddling with the zipper of my duffel bag and shutting it with a soft _whoosh_.

**II**

Merle held a lit match between this teeth, near enough to his nose to singe but not enough to burn, and then he takes it between his fingers, holding it beneath his palm and letting it burn his flesh, without flinching; instead, he's grinning in his intoxication, somewhat shaky because he's had an entire bottle from the two he found beneath a fallen shelf in the basement. Daryl and I heard him banging around loudly enough for us to fear he could be fighting a Biter, but all we found was Merle with a bottle in his pants, pretending it was all he had when we could tell he had an empty one held in his hands behind him, by the searing _stench _of it still lingering, that the selfish bastard had chugged an entire bottle by himself. I'm not a drinker, but he doesn't know this, and with a leery smile he says, "Maisie, baby girl, why don't you reach right in a-and..._grab it_? Might not be the bottle you grab though, I'm...I'm warning ya!"

He's swaying when he says this, he can hardly focus his eyes - and I can't help myself, I burst into laughter, leaning against the wall, feeling the onslaught of tears because I find his outlandish _flirting_, if you could even _call_ it that, absolutely ludicrous. Daryl holds his fist against his mouth, smothering his smile, shaking his head and strolling forward to pull that bottle from the waistband of Merle's pants even though Merle is feebly protesting _finders keepers_. This is when Daryl leads his fumbling brother to living-room and Merle lights a match, and tells me he learnt how to burn his hand in a bar with this friend of his, he says he can teach me if I want. Daryl slouches in his seat, taking small sips from that bottle of wine, staring at his brother and I wonder what he's thinking when Merle can barely stand, when he drunkenly brags about things like _I beat this bastard in a bar with my bare hands, just let him have it and broke his jaw - got arrested but, Hell, what does it matter! I gave him what's what. _

His pale eyes gaze at this mahogany coffee-table with magazines and crumpled papers that sits between us, and then he tosses the match, and it burns. A small flicker at first, faint and fading, but it finds the magazines, spreads to the papers, purges it clean of clutter and begins singeing the wood, and it is a harsh, heavy smell that seeps from its splinters. I was waiting for Daryl to scold him, to say something, but he doesn't. He was thoughtful, still taking tiny sips, staring at the table. Finally, he stands, stomps the fire with his boot and flops into his seat again, brushing his finger along his lower lip as if he's thinking about something, _really _thinking about it. Merle is still boasting about his bar fights, but I was becoming sleepy, nestling in my blankets and nodding at him whenever he said _ain't that right? _or _you listenin', Peaches?_

He collapses on the sofa, almost crushing my legs beneath him, leaning his head against its hideous flower pattern and then he clumsily tries patting my blanket in a sort of friendly manner - Merle always seems to be full of surprises. Slurring, he says, "Hell, what does it matter anyway? It don't. I guess it never did."

**III**

A spider was curling itself between the flesh of my fingers, spindly legs finding itself crawling through foreign territory, a ticklish trailing that left my skin with ghostly goosebumps; I've been struggling with sleeping lately, finding myself suffering from dreams of Fineshrine and the dead I'd left behind, all bumbling around in my brain. Somehow, my mind had become my enemy, an enigma I couldn't contain - the despair and depression I'd been smothering in its murky depths could escape in slumber. I stood from the sofa, hearing the soft hum of Daryl's snoring mixing with Merle's harsh snorting. I had to hobble with a hand against the wall, small hops and dull whimpers because I was getting better - it hurt and I could hardly straighten my spine, but I _was _getting better, I had to believe that. I was hoping for a splash of cold water to help calm myself, because I'd been crying too. I hate telling you that, but it's the truth. I could startle myself from my sleep, stifling screams because I'd hate for the brothers to hear them, and I'd feel tears streaking my cheeks with shaking fingers. That was how I'd found the spider, who was still wandering along my wrist, his fumbling legs finding the wall I was pressing my palm against and then he left, scuttling for the cobwebs strung around the corners. I was not fond of spiders, but I couldn't bring myself to crush him between my fingers. I'd rather he find a sanctuary in the soft string around him, his species still thriving even in the extinction of another.

The bathroom was beautiful, a gorgeous blend of marble and glass. I had to sit at the edges of its enormous bathtub to breathe for a moment, sweating from such exertion in this midnight expedition through the house. I saw myself in the mirror, hair hanging limply around my slumping shoulders, sleepless nights staining the soft skin beneath my eyes with a ring of neat red. _Aching_. If I was a painting, that is was what they'd call it, composing of my solemn stare and sullen pout - or perhaps _Brooding Bitch_, because I was suffocating in a pitiful sadness even with the brothers around. Mourning, I suppose, for my friends and Fineshrine too._ Aching, Brooding, Mourning Bitch_, then. Hang it in the Louvre - hell, hang it beside the _Mona Lisa _if you like, assuming it's still standing.

**IV**

I'd fallen asleep in the bathtub, that is how hopelessly tired I'd been, curling my spine along its cold porcelain and putting my arms beneath my head for a pillow. I was wishing I'd brought blankets when I heard it - a crash, echoing through the empty halls, and cursing. I was struggling to carefully climb from the bathtub with shaking limbs and a sore leg, stepping towards the door and delicately pressing my ear against it, hearing a vibrating hum of puzzling voices. Human - entirely human, not Biters bumbling through the eerie hallways, but _humans_. I was struggling to swallow this suffocating fear, seeing flickers of flames in my head and fire squads and _Rose_, running from Fineshrine, from _me_ - but then I heard Daryl, his defiant shouts, his struggle to fight. I was afraid it was the men that had taken Fineshrine ambushing us again, but still I found myself sneaking towards the hallway, my heart hammering in my chest and my skin clammy, feeling faint. I couldn't help myself. It was a crippling sort of fear that I was finding hard to smother.

I had to slip through the kitchen where we kept the duffel bags we'd brought, grabbing a glass bottle to defend myself with because Daryl's crossbow was with him and Merle always had his gun close by. I could hear a harsh _thump_, _thump_, _thump_. I stood by the door behind which the strangers were holding the Dixon Brothers hostage, breathing hard and heavy. Then I did it - I burst in with a bottle and a bold sort of bravery, bashing the bastard standing closest, and he was collapsing with a cry. Three of them, one sniffling at my feet, the other two staring in obvious surprise at where I stood with shaking determination, a silent stand-off. One was heavier, jowls jiggling and heaving from all this struggling. The other, small and skinnier, was sweating and staring between us all in fear. I saw a pool of blood pumping from Merle's mouth, figuring that _thump_, _thump_, _thump_ had been them furiously hitting him, probably because he'd said something stupid - his left eye was swelling shut, the lids a subtle shade of purple, swaying with his hands tied behind him.

Daryl was fast with his fists, standing swiftly and hitting the heavier man, then crashing to the floor with him and sitting on his chest. Merle couldn't do much with his hands tied, meaning the skinny guy thought he'd take the girl instead. His hand found my throat, tightening harshly, shoving me against the wall with surprising strength. I went for his groin with my good leg, but it was harder than I thought, my head hitting the concrete wall and a small cry slipping from my lips. The man I'd hit and who'd fallen to the floor was twitching, trying to haul himself to his feet and help the friend Daryl was hitting without mercy. Finally, I hit the man that was holding my throat, and he fell. I ran for Merle, ripping apart the ties around his wrists and almost crashing against the floor when he burst forward and went for the man I'd hit with a bottle, curling his hands into fists and pummeling him, but I was panting from the pain in my throat and my leg, struggling to lift it and stand properly.

Daryl was in a daze, staring dizzily at the man beneath him, who was swollen and silent and bleeding badly. He was swaying when he stood, taking staggering steps towards where I sat, taking the ties from the floor. The man he'd been hitting could hardly _breathe_, but Daryl still bent to tie his hands together. When he stood, he saw the man who'd been strangling me was missing, and then Daryl was suddenly bolting towards the kitchen where we kept supplies. I heard a door slamming, but I was staring at Merle, who was _spitting _at the man beneath him. He was sneering at him, "You think you can hit me, ya _fucking bastard_? You think you can hit me, and _get away with it_? I'll fucking teach you, boy, I'll fucking show you what's what!"

"Merle," I whispered, my voice hoarse and tender from that man strangling my throat. I swallowed, tried again. "Merle, stop - Merle!"

He heard, because his eyes snapped towards where I sat. He was considering me, I could tell, clutching the chin of his stranger who was staring at him in horror - he thought Merle was going to murder him, and I couldn't help but think that too. "Keep quiet, Maisie!"

It was an order. I understood this. Which is why I said, "Don't hurt him, Merle. Don't do it, you're better than that." Even though I didn't know if he truly _was _better than that - I simply said it because I couldn't think of anything else to say. I didn't want him to hurt this man not because I thought this stranger deserved mercy, but because I couldn't handle more nightmares of death. I just couldn't. Merle was shaking he was that angry, and I was trying to soothe that anger with a pleading stare. "Please, Merle. Don't."

Daryl burst in, a duffel bag in his hands. He saw his brother, this man beneath him, my stifled sobs. "Get off 'im, Merle. We're going."

Merle hesitated, hands still holding this man, but slowly he stood and then he spat at him. "Dumb bastard. Dumb _fucking_ bastard."

**V**

He'd taken the food; the man that'd held my throat, he'd taken the cans of food but he hadn't found the duffel bag with fresh bandages and the small bottles of pills for the pain we'd kept hidden in the chimney of the kitchen. I sat curling against the sagging seat of Daryl's truck, fingers trailing along its torn tatters and faint scratches, shaken and scared and _smiling_. Smiling because even if we sat simmering in a tense sort of silence - apart from the choking _chuga-chug-chug _of an almost-empty engine struggling along a bumpy road - it was enough, because we were breathing and blissfully _alive_. I was not sitting in a forest with a broken bone and split skin, screaming at Rose Campbell for being a coward. Merle and Daryl had not been shot by the strangers ambushing us, and even if they're angry with one another, it didn't matter.

We're close to the city. We see a smattering of Biters every once in a while, but that's about all. Merle weaves wildly around us on his motorcycle, still mad. _We'll starve_, that's what he says. I don't say anything, because he's angry and Merle is dangerous when he's angry - Daryl is dangerous too, he spits venom when you voice even the smallest thought, because the ambush seems to embarrass him, that'd we been caught "_with our dicks in our hands_" like that, but I don't care because we're still breathing. That is all that matters. We're still breathing.


	5. Four

**. CHAPTER FOUR . **

**I**

When I was four, my mother brought me to a speech therapist because she was afraid _something was wrong with me_ - she said it in a hushed whisper as if she was afraid of saying it aloud, as if she was a bad mother for believing I was deaf or dumb because I didn't talk much. I remember the cartoon animals adorning the walls of the hospital that I found somewhat soothing, wearing stethoscopes and smart coats, beaming at the babies below them - lions with lollipops, giraffes with great big grins and tigers with thermometers held between sharp smiling teeth. The speech therapist made me doodle stupid things like the sun and stars that didn't have much to do with talking. She couldn't diagnose me because there wasn't anything to diagnose, much to my mother's disappointment. I don't mean that harshly, as if she was _hoping _for something - but I suppose she thought if I had something, then that might solve it all, but the speech therapist told her I was simply _developing_. I'd emerge from my shell eventually, as if I was a timid turtle or something, except I don't believe I ever really did. I kept quiet when I was killing Biters in the forest and I kept quiet about Fineshrine around the brothers, smothering my callous fantasies about strangling Rose for betraying us and then running from us too, the coward. I was angry with Elijah for letting her in, I was angry with the men that shot my friends, and I was even angry with myself for hurting my leg. I had a bad habit of muffling that maddening anger, because there was always something worse to worry about. There's always something.

**II**

We sat around a pool of pure blue, sweating and simmering in silence, putting plasters around the scratches from the fighting and pushing the feelings we had to a silent place in our brains because we had a bigger problem - we're starving. It is a strange thing to realise that we had never really understood the utter hold hunger has, how it _strangles_ you when there truly is _nothing _we can eat and all we can do is sit because our energy is spent stifling our emotions. I wasn't certain if we'd be camping in this reserve, but it was rather pretty with its prim trees and a lake I'd like to swim in if it wasn't for the miserable mood we're all in. Merle is in the grim kind of mood where he wants a fight, flexing his fingers and forming a tight fist, and kicking at the dirt beneath his boots but he is silent - the dangerous sort of silent, the sort you associate with an angry snake slithering through the grass. Daryl is a dog that's been thrown around a little too much and is about to bite back, daring his brother to say something. I sit in between them, tummy gurgling and grumbling as if in my belly I am hiding a Biter, with the blazing heat of the sun and the burning hunger making me lazy and languid. I'd never been this hungry. An aching hunger that actually _hurts_.

Merle is the first to say something - go figure - and grumbles, "What are we gonna do?"

We are essentially stranded by this lagoon of liquid blue, crystal clear water, our bellies as empty as the engine of the truck that basks in the sunlight behind us along with Merle's motorcycle and it will not budge. Daryl takes a second to lick his lower lip, beads of sweat sliding along his burning temples before he says, "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"That's what I said."

"Fucking _useless_," Merle mutters. Daryl's shoulders sag, but he doesn't say anything to defend himself, so I do.

"You're hardly helping. What do _you _know, o' mighty Merle? Bestow us with your wisdom, why don't you?"

"There's a few trees right there, Peaches, why don't _you_ go find yourself another bear-trap and _step on it_?"

I gave his shoulder a slap and was about to hit him harder, but Daryl held my wrist wearily and muttered, "Stop it, Maisie. That won't help."

"Moron," I spat at Merle, but he was smirking. I tore my wrist from Daryl's grip, giving him a glare because what Merle had said hurt, but then again that was what he had been hoping for. To hurt. Which is what Merle always does when he's angry and even though I know this, it doesn't soften the blow at all.

We sat in silence again, because it felt like whenever we tried talking, we'd fight. Merle stood, strolling to the ledge that had a slope leading to the water, and I was watching him with worry. He was a hard man to handle when he was fed, meaning when he was mad and hungry, he was simply frightening. Then he repeated himself, his grizzly voice rumbling another growl of, "What are we gonna _do_?"

"I already told you-..." Daryl tried, squinting in the harsh sunlight to see him.

"That ain't fucking good enough!" Merle shouted, making me flinch in surprise. "This is _your _fault anyhow!"

Daryl snorted, shaking his head. "My fault, huh?"

"Why weren't you watching us? Weren't it _your _turn?"

"My turn?" Daryl repeated incredulously.

"You heard me, ya fucking parrot, _your turn_!" Merle spat.

"We didn't agree to take turns that night Merle, and you know that," I grumbled, glaring at him.

"And if you weren't dumb and drunk, then maybe we might'a had a chance to defend ourselves," Daryl snapped, and I had to admire his courage because his brother was _angry_. Beetroot red and flaring nostrils, clenching his fists and veins bulging from his forehead sort of angry. "What's the matter, Merle? Angry you got the _shit _kicked out of you?"

Merle stomped forward and held Daryl's shirt in his fist, hauling him to his feet and I was scrambling to push myself between them and pull them apart. Daryl was staring his brother down, _daring_ him. Merle was letting me shove him, small hands thumping against his chest and my shaking voice trying to calm him, but he was still circling Daryl like a vulture, baring his teeth in a smile with spittle on his chin. He gave it a wipe with one hand, holding Daryl's defiant gaze. I stood between them, hands held as if I could be a barrier between them.

Lowly, Daryl muttered, "Sit down, Maisie."

"No!"

"You heard 'im, Peaches. Rest that poor ol' leg of yours, poor little Princess," Merle cooed, popping his _p_'s and pretending to pinch my cheeks. I slapped him away, but all he did was laugh loudly. "It's _your _fucking fault too. Where were you hiding, huh?"

"I was in the bathroom!" I snapped at him.

"Ahuh, you hear that Daryl? She _didn't _run out on us after all! Bet that eases your mind, little brother, don't it - that our little damsel with the bum leg didn't leave us like you thought she did, huh?"

Merle could've punched me and it wouldn't have hurt as much as his words had, my pleading eyes meeting Daryl's in the hopes he'd deny what his brother said, but he didn't - he was staring at his brother, his jutting jaw tense and his mouth tight.

"You thought I'd run, that...that I was another _Rose_?" I asked slowly, still staring at him.

"Can't blame the boy, Peaches!"

"I ain't a boy," Daryl hissed at his brother.

"Can't blame him!" Merle continued, as if he hadn't heard Daryl at all. "Not when you got yourself caught up in that shitstorm with your old gang. What was his name, the uh-...the guy that bossed your friends around? _Elijah_, wasn't it?"

"Shut up," I spat at him, but he was smiling.

"Elijah, that's right. Ain't you mad that he let that lady in? I mean, how _stupid _was that! He fucking deserved it if you ask-..."

I lunged at him, even with my leg, crashing against his chest and trying to hit him, but he was laughing - I was scratching at him, clawing at him, cursing him too, and he was _laughing _at me. Daryl held me by my waist, swinging me away from his brother and shoving us apart. I spat at Merle, who was wiping a spot of blood from a scratch I'd given him along his cheek, but then Daryl was trying to calm me by telling me he wasn't worth it. I guess he could tell I was almost crying - Merle was always good at that, making me cry.

Now it was Daryl standing between us, a noble attempt at giving his brother a bit of sense, but he needn't bother because Merle was still grinning stupidly.

"Stop tryin' to make her mad Merle-..." Daryl warned.

"Make her mad?" he hollered, as if he couldn't believe what his brother was saying. "Ever since we found her, with that fucking leg of hers, she's been _leechin_' off us for all we got, and you're stupid enough to go along with her! I always told you, you're fuckin' _useless_, Darylena - too much of a _pussy _for your own good! She gives you a smile and what? You're putty in her hands, that's what!"

"Merle," Daryl growled, with a sharp edge to his voice. "Knock it off."

"I tried teachin' you better, I really did, and still you disappoint me because you're too _soft_! You won't ever survive, not in this world. It's pathetic."

"You're a horrible, _horrible_ person," I hissed, pointing at Merle. Daryl held his hand out, not quite touching my chest but close enough to shove me away if I tried anything else.

Merle raised his arms, as if daring me to run at him and hit him again. "I'm telling the truth, Peaches, and if you don't like it, well - you can piss off, because you're just as bad as he is, maybe worse. You think you'll survive with that leg? Then you're just as deluded as he is, and I feel sorry for you."

"Why do you gotta be so difficult?" Daryl asked quietly. I think he was hurt by what his brother had said, and he was trying to hold it in. His skin was a faint scarlet, his pale eyes peering at Merle as if saddened by his meanness. "Why do you gotta fight with everyone?"

Merle scoffed at him. "There you go again, being too soft! Hell, you wouldn't survive another damn day without me-..."

This ignited something in Daryl, who forgot all about pushing me away from his brother, because he pounded forward and stood inches from his brother, staring him down. "I survived _plenty _a days without you. Juvie, remember? All them times you ran off with your gang or your latest girlfriend or you got yourself locked up for somethin' stupid? I survived _fine _without you, asshole, just _fine_."

Merle stood closer to him, so that their chests were bumping and I was wondering if I should step between them again. "I'm the asshole? _I'm _the asshole? _You're _the reason we're starving, Darylena, _you're _the one that got us in this fuckin' mess makin' us stay in that house in the first place, makin' us cart 'round this cripple, you fuckin' pansy-..."

That was it. Daryl went for him, and they were tumbling along the slope behind them towards the water. All I could see was a cloud of dust, then I heard the splash of them hitting the pool of water, pummeling one another. "Daryl!" I roared, rushing to the edge and staring at the ripples lapping against the ledge. He was climbing from the water already, his clothes soaking and sticking to him, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. Merle was behind him, spitting water and blood. I put my hand on Daryl's shoulder, afraid of the blood pumping from his nose but he was trying not to acknowledge it, stomping past.

I stood, staring at him, wondering what to say. Then I heard Merle mutter, "Where's my sympathy, huh? Where's _my _sympathy?"

**III**

I was sniffling in my tent, taking shaky breaths and sobbing like a baby because everything was falling apart and that hunger in my belly was blazing and even my heart felt as if it was hurting. Daryl had quickly marched into the forest by the quarry after his fight with Merle and he was still hiding in its depths where it'd be hard to find him, which is probably what he'd been hoping for; small bit of privacy after beating his brother, and he truly _had _beaten his brother. Merle was already suffering from the fight with the strangers, but after Daryl had hit him, his face was swelling again and he'd bruise badly by the morning. I was angry with him for calling me a cripple, a word that was swimming around my head for hours after he'd said it. It had stung somewhere deep in my soul, settling there and flaring with a fierce sort of pain whenever I thought about it. I was already swathing my leg in fresh bandages when that lousy brute stood by the tent to tell me he'd be sleeping in the truck, and I thought _fine, freeze out there then, asshole_.

I'd sat for another hour, then thought I should simply bite the bullet, crawling from my tent and standing with just Daryl's jacket around my shoulder covering my dress and a flashlight in my hand - I'd rather find him, bring him something to wear for warmth and force him to return if I had to. I was limping across cold leaves, hearing crickets chirping. Daryl hadn't even taken his crossbow. He could be hurt or dying in that forest and it'd all be for a stupid fight. I had to shove Merle aside to search for the duffel bag sitting beneath him where he slept awkwardly in that truck, a man of his bulk barely able to tuck himself against its seat without smacking his head against the window. The gun we had held three bullets and that was all, but it was good enough - better than being totally empty. It's not entirely good but it's not entirely bad either; that was how you had to look at things.

The leaves of the trees were bristling against the leather of Daryl's jacket around my shoulders, my eyes darting around just trying to tell the blur of shadows apart because it was an inky darkness I was walking through. The slightest swishing of bushes had me shaking, scared it might be a Biter. In my head, I had this horrible vision of Daryl, having been bitten, mindlessly bumbling towards me with his pale blue eyes becoming this petrifying milky white and his husky voice gurgling and gargling - and I _did _hear moaning, from behind the trees. I had my gun in my hand, carefully climbing logs with my leg a dead weight behind, always dragging it along and giving it all I had not to crush a twig or slip on a darn leaf, because if that Biter heard, they'd -...

Well, they'd do nothing at all, because behind those bushes and trees I found not a Biter but a panting pair of lovers, laughing breathlessly. I stood, peering at them in surprise - realising that if they saw they'd run screaming that a pervert was watching them in the woodlands. However, I forgot all about my possible perversion when I saw a shotgun, left lying by a tree closer to me than them and I guess he'd carried her to that tree and held her against it in their frenzy of kissing and in this frenzy they'd forgotten that a Biter could burst from anywhere and kill them - or a girl, who could bite just as badly if she had to. I did something very daring and a bit stupid, dashing silently behind the trees to take the shotgun and steal its bullets, stuffing them in my pocket and blushing at their panting and pawing at one another. Then I stood from behind the bushes, slipping from the cold shadows and standing in the clearing, smiling because I thought I was being clever by taking the bullets - after all, he could be a trigger-happy sort of fellow.

"Fine spot for a bit of fondling," I said loudly, and the lady shrieked, shoving him from her. He stumbled with flailing arms, already trying to steady himself and turn to grab his gun. I'd left it for him to find, letting him believe it had bullets and pretending to be surprised when he pointed it at my forehead. My calm eyes fell to the fumbling fingers of the woman who was rubbing her blushing red skin as if ridding herself of his feverish kisses, and saw she had a wedding ring - and this man who was blinking rapidly and still holding his gun as if he was going to kill me very clearly didn't.

"What the Hell are you doing?" the man spat.

"Were you-...Were you _watching us_?" the woman asked, seeming horrified.

I knew I'd look like a pervert somehow, I just _knew _it. "Actually I was trying to find my friend. And if you were trying to hide your affair, then I'd suggest not being so loud, lady."

She held her hands over her eyes, obviously embarrassed, but she didn't deny that it was an affair. Her boyfriend was hovering protectively between us, still pointing that shotgun at me, moving his mouth as if trying to think of something to say. Then he saw my bandages and said, "You bit?"

"No," I denied defensively.

"She could be lying," the woman said nervously, and her boyfriend nodded.

"Show us. Prove you ain't bit," he demanded.

"No," I repeated. Daryl had seen the hideous stitches and healing bone and bruised skin and I simply _hated_ him seeing it - why would I ever want to show strangers?

"I'll shoot if you don't," the man said, but he was bluffing and I'd have known that even if I hadn't taken his bullets.

"Go ahead," I snapped, a bit too harshly. I had to take a deep breath, telling myself that Daryl and Merle and I could not survive another night if we didn't find ourselves some friends to share our burdens with. So, a little softer, I said, "I had an accident, that's all. I don't like showing my leg to strangers." I was staring him down when I saw he was wearing the clothes of a cop, and I cocked my head in confusion. "A policeman?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said with a short nod, a hint of pride making it through his pensive stare. "Now, I don't wanna hurt you but-..."

"So it isn't just something kinky to wear when having an affair, then, with the handcuffs and all?" I smiled, laughing a little, but his lips didn't even twitch. "You thought I was someone else, didn't you? I bet you have a group, a whole _gang_ that don't know what you're doing."

The woman was becoming pale, blue eyes peering between her boyfriend and I. "Shane, she-..."

"She won't do anything, Lori," _Shane _interrupted, intense gaze turning towards her to assure her of this, then turning towards me again. "Not if she don't wanna get shot. You said you're trying to find your friend - that means you ain't alone. Who're you with?"

In my mind I thought, _Merle Dixon, the biggest bastard you'll ever meet, but we can stuff a sock in his mouth if you let us live with you, sir_. I couldn't tell them that the brothers had been fighting, they'd fear that we're savage brutes that'd blaze through their camp and steal from them, but then I had to tell them _something_.

"I'm travelling with two men, they're brothers - one of them, he went hunting for food and I'm trying to find him before morning because it isn't safe to be wandering around alone, even though he's more than capable of caring for himself."

"Hunting?" Shane repeated slowly.

"Like, wild animals kind of hunting?" Lori said, honestly sounding surprised.

"You can't eat from cans forever," I said evenly, figuring that eating from cans was _exactly_ what they'd been doing and perhaps their supplies were dwindling to the point where taking in hunters might help them. "He hunts and skins them and everything, and then we eat them - and his brother was in the army, and he's pretty good at surviving in the wild, too. I don't think I'd make it without them, if I'm honest with you."

"_If_ you're honest with us," Shane grumbled. "That's a strong _if_. How do I know you ain't gonna try stealing from us?"

"I'm not that stupid and I don't steal from the living, either," I said as calmly as I could, thought there was still a slight edge to my voice because when I heard _stealing _I thought of a certain Campbell. "In fact, we'd been staying in a house when had our stuff stolen, mostly food, meaning we had to hit the road for my friends to try hunting somewhere better. We found this quarry, thought it was pretty quaint. Figured we'd stay."

Lori and Share were sharing looks. Then, slowly, she said, "Shane, she might be telling the truth."

"Don't it seem too good to be true?" he spat, staring at me. "She says her friends can hunt, _survive _this shit. She might be lying about that leg of hers too, she could be bit. Or she could be trying to swindle us outta all our stuff, Lori. We got people to protect."

"How about I start by giving you these?" I smiled, pulling the bullets from my pocket and showing him them rolling around in my palm - which was either really brave or really stupid, or perhaps both, but you had to take chances like this. "After all, they're yours."

His mouth fell open and in a fluster he said, "Son of a _bitch_-..."

"If I'd been a Biter, you'd both be dead," I interrupted sharply, deciding to swap my smile for something a little more serious - an unhappy frown, like what I imagined a scolding mother might use. Then I gave him his bullets, standing tall beneath his grim gaze. "I took your bullets because I thought it'd be the smart thing to do, not because I was trying to steal from you, Shane. I simply understand that trusting someone isn't easy, but shooting them is. I was protecting myself - and I'm willing to help protect you and your friends, if you're willing to protect us too, understand? We'll hunt. Find food. If you'll let us stay with you."

"Seems a lot of promising from a girl with a limp like yours," Shane replied gruffly. Behind him, Lori ducked her head as if she'd been thinking that but didn't want to say it, shuffling her weight around, clearly uncomfortable. Shane was aware of this, but he was still trying to seem threatening by looming above me, eyes looking down as if he was daring me to do something to them - but, again, I thought it was all a bluff. The thing with the bullets had scared him, I could tell. He'd let his guard down, and he knew that was a stupid thing to do, given what _really_ could have been lurking in the woods. "Seems to me like it'd be _us _protecting _you_, with a problem like that."

"I've been surviving a long time, and I'll _still _survive even with my leg," I stated firmly. "And I bet I'll survive a lot longer than you two, given I got your bullets from your shotgun before you'd even got your hand up her shirt."

His eyes, which had been glaring, fell to the floor in a grimace of embarrassment and Lori was looking equally livid. Trying to salvage his dignity, he said, "I'll meet the men you say you're with, prove you're telling the truth, Miss-..."

"Maisie Bellerose," I smiled, sticking my hand out for him to shake. He did, surprisingly gentle, because I thought he'd try showing his toughness by grinding my poor bones together or something - but then, perhaps I'd been around the Dixon Brothers too much. Toughness was a trait through which they thrived.

"Miss Bellerose," he nodded. "I'm Shane Walsh, that's Lori Grimes."

"Pleasure," I grinned at her, but she was still pale and embarrassed, nothing like the panting woman I'd heard when navigating the woods earlier. "I won't tell your group what I saw, if that's what you're worried about."

"The brothers you're with," Shane started in a shaky voice, breezing by my vow, "...they good guys? We can trust them?"

"I wouldn't be with them if they weren't."

Which was the truth. I just had to find a sock to stuff in Merle's mouth to give us enough time to prove it - preferably a very grimy, grubby sock.


	6. Five

**. CHAPTER FIVE .**

**I**

I was weaving between dead bodies and debris with Daryl behind, my skirt billowing in the wind when we sped down a steep hill, my laughter loud and my smile bright. I'd found bicycles with cute baskets in a shed in a house we'd been salvaging through and taken them, whizzing by him and flying down the hill despite his shouting that I was being stupid, childish even - which is why I'd left him with the bike that had plastic flowers, a pretty little bell, and tassels streaming from its basket. Eventually, Daryl decided it'd be easier to carry cans around with the basket and a bicycle was speedy enough to slip by Biters. We flew through the suburbs, breezing by broken houses and the Biters bashing at the windows from within, finding ourselves actually having _fun_. Even with my leg hanging loosely by the pedals, I could still push when I had to, ignoring Daryl's paranoid fear I'd fall. He'd found cans in the cupboards of a house and thrown them in his flowery basket, boasting that Shane could shove a can where the sun don't shine for doubting us - Daryl was not fond of being told what to do, especially by Shane, who he didn't feel was worthy of bossing him around. The chain of his bicycle was rusting a bit, meaning he had to hit it a bit harder with his boot to push himself from the ground, his pale eyes running along the rows of houses. I was riding behind him, pushing the pedals rather lazily, my legs prickling with small bolts of pain I said nothing about - I was enjoying myself too much, basking in the blazing sunlight burning through this nice little neighbourhood.

Daryl was finding it hard to fit in with the folks we'd been staying with for almost a solid month. It was not that he was moody or mean; instead he was mostly silent, which was a problem because it meant Merle was parading around in his brash manner, with Daryl slinking behind him and all the strangers we're staying with saw was Merle. The three of us slept in a tent together, which is what we had always done when we didn't a house to stay in, but this meant Merle told Daryl what to do in the mornings and - well, he did it. I don't mean that Merle was being demanding or asking anything of Daryl that he didn't already do, because it was mostly hunting or hiking through the woods with him. Then, in the evenings, Daryl would stroll right through the camp with blood coating his shirt and dead rabbits dangling from his shoulders. He'd sit by the fire and skin them, keeping real silent with his knife slicing through flesh to feed the group, but he'd never give them a friendly smile or say much at all, really. He was quiet and always had been, but I suppose to the strangers sitting around a quaint camp-fire, Daryl was cold and distant.

Merle was brash and bold, lewd and leery, like he'd always been; he had the women worrying he was a brute, a caveman that'd bang against his chest and claim them for his own and it was obvious the men thought this too, that he was attempting to be the Alpha male - and he was. He had a tendency towards telling Shane what he thought, often belittling his orders or blatantly ignoring them, which was irritating the group because what Shane told them to do gave them a sense of security. In the tent, when the group was soundly sleeping, I tried giving Merle a curt scolding, warning him that if we tried changing things to suit us, they wouldn't want anything to do with us. All he said was, _what's the matter, Peaches? Worried we'll be the bullied kids in the playground, the outcasts or something?_

That was exactly what I worried about. I mean, they could kick us to the curb and we'd survive without them, this much I could tell you without trying to seem cruel about it - it was simply apparent that Shane hadn't been entirely honest in the forest about food in the camp, because it was easy to tell that they'd been foraging for berries and eating their final cans when we came along. On the first night we sat with them, their curious faces staring at us and the fire blazing between us, Daryl told Lori that the bowl of berries by her legs would have her spewing blood if she ate them - and not from her mouth, making her cringe and flush a faint scarlet. Then Merle told Amy and Andrea, sisters who'd been staying in a tent, that they shouldn't sleep by the ledge looming above the lake because they'd find their sleeping-bags riddled with insects - adding that he'd be happy to sleep with them, for their safety of course, and it was then that Dale firmly told them they could stay in the RV, shooting sly glares at a grinning Merle. What Daryl chose to tell them, and what Merle couldn't _help _telling them, made something clear to them; they might not trust us, but they needed us.

Actually, if I'm being honest, I was not doing much better than Daryl and I suppose that was mostly because I'd been with him and Merle and never had to talk if I didn't want to. I had always been quiet, even in Fineshrine, but this did not settle well with the women of this quarry - they tried subtly to lure me from the brothers and help with laundry in the pitiful hopes of prying _something_ from my lips, whether it be about the brothers themselves or _my poor leg_. They always said it like that. Which is why I didn't feel very much like telling them about Fineshrine or anything about myself for that matter apart from I'd been with the brothers for a few months and, why yes, I _can _fold laundry even _with_ my poor leg - miracles _do _occur!

We'd been riding bicycles all around the houses, racing through the streets and gliding by ghostly bits of rubbish strewn around, shaking Shane's shackles from our limbs and letting ourselves revel in the light, warming our bones. We made it to the top of the hill again, squinting in the sunlight and taking a small moment to breathe, the distant sound of Biters drifting through the warm breeze.

"It's sorta nice sometimes," Daryl said softly, and my eyes met his in surprise. He was shy, shifting his gaze towards a broken gate by a burnt house, as if he thought what he was saying was silly. "I mean, it's not _nice_, what's happening in the world. But this ain't so bad when everythin' is quiet and you can think without havin' to say anythin' to anybody. Without Biters or another bastard tryin' to take what's yours or kill ya because he's a desperate son of a bitch with nothin' to live for and nothin' to lose, either."

"No, it's not bad at all. Without Biters or sons of bitches," I smiled at him, and he shook his head, smirking.

"That was a stupid thing to say," he said. My smile fell, realising with a frown that he thought I'd been messing with him, that I'd been _sarcastic_ with him, because that was something Merle would say if he'd heard what his brother said.

"That wasn't stupid at all, Daryl Dixon, and don't you say that it was ever again," I replied, startling him with how strongly I said it. "That was something Merle would say, and you're repeating him!"

His eyebrows stitched together, but he saw the sense in what I'd said. "Maisie-..."

"You once told me that your brother says a lot of stupid shit," I interrupted. "So what'd you go repeating him for when you got more brains in your baby finger than he has in his whole body! You shouldn't let him boss you around, either - like he's been trying to boss everybody around, and they're letting him because they're scared of him and don't know what to do about it, even Shane!"

"They ain't scared of him," Daryl denied.

"Daryl, even when it was just us three in those woods, we couldn't always control your brother's temper - especially after that ambush in the house when you thought I'd left-..."

"I didn't think you'd left," he snapped harshly, glaring at me. "What I told Merle was I thought you'd got scared or somethin'."

"Scared?"

"Yes, _scared_," he muttered, balancing against his bicycle. "Scared 'cause of what happened to you and your friends, figured you might'a ran when they bust in 'cause when I woke up you weren't there."

"Oh." Again, with that pitiful _oh_, the only stupid thing I could possibly say. "Well Merle said-..."

"Merle says a lot of stupid shit," Daryl cut across, smiling again. "Thought we agreed about that?"

"We did, but that group won't take it forever, Daryl. You remember that."

I was letting my leg swing safely by sitting sideways against my saddle and preparing to push against the pedals. He saw this and did the same, holding the handlebars and then accidentally brushing his hand against the small bell that went _ding-ding_. I held my breath, but I couldn't hold it in, I burst into laughter - crying tears when he hit the basket in frustration only to hear the little bell _ding-ding _again.

"Stupid freaking-..." he cursed in frustration, his fingers tangling in the tassels. He tore them to shreds, pulling the plastic flowers from the lilac basket and firing them at me because I was still wheezing breathlessly from laughter. They tangled in my hair, and when I trying to take them out, Daryl was off, speeding wildly down the hill. I was still laughing even when I finally caught up to him, that pulsating pain in my leg becoming a dull throb that was soon forgotten entirely.

**II**

In the night I heard a soft sob and a quiet splash of water from the quarry; I hid behind trees, afraid of an ambush or a Biter or something bad, but instead all I found was a woman with bruises and a broken soul. Carol Peletier, crying and patting raw cuts with plasters where she sat by the river, sniffling with shaking shoulders. I stood close behind her, staring at her shaking hands cupping water and washing her short hair with it. She did not wash with the women and I had not thought much about this, because I was bashful about this too; I would wait and when they left, I'd peel the bandages from my leg and slip into the lake, green eyes peering around for fear of someone seeing that gory slash in my skin. Carol's daughter, Sophia, sometimes swam with Carl and I had seen small bruises staining her skin too, but she was a child and Carl had them too - perhaps not that many in comparison, but I thought children fell and cut their flesh all the time without it being something to worry about. When watching her mother, I was starting to wonder if I was a mindless fool for thinking that.

I slowly stood beside her, stifling my sadness when she held a grimy hand against her mouth to stop her shrieking - which I'm assuming meant she thought it was the man that gave her the bruises. Her shoulders fell, watching me struggle to sit without falling. Her hand shot out, steadying my arm, obviously afraid I'd scold her for this because the moment I sat she snatched it away as if I'd be angry with her for it. I didn't exactly enjoy it, because I didn't want to seem weak or delicate, depending on everyone to help especially when I'd been healing enough to hobble around by myself, but this was Carol's nature and she had this need to soothe. Even when she was hurting herself.

"Thank you," I said with a small smile, letting out a slow sigh when stretching my leg. She nodded quickly, eyes darting around at the quarry nervously; I'd seen her bruises but still she felt the need to hide. She was tense, touching the cuts along her skin and taking small glances at the tents behind us, chewing her lip like she thought Ed might come barreling towards us. "Does it hurt?"

She saw my eyes staring at her bruises, and with surprising bitterness, she snorted, "Does yours?"

I whistled lowly, letting my head dip to my chest, and Carol didn't see my smile and thought I was cross with her. I saw her flush, fingers twisting the hem of her shirt together in her hands nervously, saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that" again and again. I had to wonder if she was this way around Ed, if he _made _her this anxious all the time. When she saw my smile, she was momentarily stunned, but then her eyebrows eased and her lips loosened as if all the tension she felt was slowly falling away bit by bit.

"It hurts. Hurts to hobble around, hurts to sit, hurts to stand," I shrugged. "It doesn't matter though."

"Don't tell them. Please. Don't."

"I won't. I won't tell."

"They hurt, sometimes," she said, eyes swelling with sadness. She spoke softly. Always softly. Always apologetic.

**III**

I was sitting alone, embers of a fading fire eating the last log I had and its warmth fading when I heard them murmuring and then a holler of, _Maisie, sweetheart, you wanna sit with us_? Andrea had said it, her arms wrapping around her sister Amy, staring at me with a sweet smile. Dale sat with T-Dog and Glenn beside him, gun against his beige pants and pale eyes peering towards my tent. Lori was holding a bowl of berries taken from the bushes nearby, Shane nearly lounging in her lap and her son, Carl, lying against her tummy. She fed him the berries, plopping them in his mouth and pretending it was an airplane firing bombs to make him smile. With Merle and Daryl hunting together, I thought I'd be all alone tonight, but apparently my fellow campers were feeling curiously friendly - or they thought ambushing was best when it was merely myself and not the brothers. I'd been eating the rabbit Daryl left behind, ripping its skin with my teeth, tearing like a rabid dog because it was tougher, not that I was complaining about the skills of whoever had been cooking it. Slowly, aware of their stares watching me dragging my leg along the dirt, I left my lonely tent to sit with them, thanking Glenn aloud for giving me his seat and inwardly cursing him for it because Merle's cruel taunt of _cripple _was banging around my brain - like they'd been feeling sorry for the poor girl with a lousy limp.

"Shouldn't sit all by yourself, Maisie," Shane announced pleasantly, loud enough for all to hear, handing me a can of cold pasta. "Not when we've got plenty room for ya!"

"I don't mind being alone," I replied, smiling halfheartedly at him.

"Have you ever been alone before? Like, after everything sort of...fell apart?" Amy asked, and Andrea pinched her pale sister's arm as if she didn't want to her to ask that, but in my head I thought, _aha_. _This is what they've been waiting for, what they've been wanting. With the brothers climbing through the woods and me all alone, this is their chance and they've taken it_. "What? I'm just _asking_!"

"I've been alone," I answered slowly, choosing my words carefully. "I was alone for a while, actually."

"Then you met Daryl and Merle?" Amy implored, nodding her head.

"No. No, I had another group. Before them, I mean. But it doesn't matter." Firm. No fussing around, meaning Amy's face fell. "I'm with Daryl and Merle - and all of you, too."

The silence was suffocating us. Shane prodded the fire with a poker, the flames sizzling and spitting flickers. Andrea was plaiting Amy's hair, fingers twisting between strands and tugging them together tightly, slapping her sister's hand away when Amy tried poking her to annoy her. Carl was complaining to his mother that he wasn't tired, he wasn't a _baby_, but she was making him go to bed, making him stand reluctantly still while she gave his cheek a kiss that he tried rubbing away, marching to bed and muttering beneath his breath.

"He's really trying to rattle me these days," Lori sighed, running a hand through her hair tiredly. "I worry so much about Walkers and him-...well, I can't even say it."

"Walkers," I repeated. "Huh."

"What d'you call 'em?" T-Dog asked.

"Biters. The group I was with always said Biters, but Daryl and Merle just call them bastards."

"Sounds like them," Dale chuckled, shaking his head. "Merle is quite, uh-..._expressive_."

"He's a bastard too, is what you're trying to say," I said. "Which is true, but he's not all bad."

Andrea snorted. "Oh really? I'll believe that when I see it."

"He keeps calling me Chinaman - I'm _Korean_," Glenn muttered, crinkling his nose with chagrin.

"Likes telling everyone what to do, doesn't he?" Lori mumbled, rolling her eyes. "Whereas his brother doesn't talk much at all."

"I'd have died without him and Daryl," I said quietly, plopping a spoonful of pasta in my mouth. That silence swept through them again, all eyes staring at me through the embers of the fire. I let my spoon fall into that slop after swallowing another mouthful, leaning against my seat with a shrug. I tapped my leg lightly. "Because of this, I mean. If the brothers hadn't helped, I'd have died. I'd be a Biter or a Walker or even a bastard, whatever you wanna call 'em. I'd be one of 'em. They fed you all, too, if I'm not mistaken."

Glenn glanced guiltily at the can he held in his hand, taken from the dangerous trip Daryl and I made to distant houses. "We didn't mean-..."

"It's alright."

"No, it's not," Lori disagreed, leaning forward in her seat. "We're thankful. Really, we are."

A hum of agreement from them all. I had to wonder what they said when I wasn't around, when they weren't afraid to say what they really thought, because mostly I liked them. I might not be the best at expressing this, but it was the truth. I liked them. Then Shane was talking about security again, making a point to thank Daryl for putting empty cans along pieces of string, tying them so that they'd jingle and jangle together if a Biter stumbled through it. I suppose it was sweet of them to try and include me, because they didn't have to do this. They could've let me sit, cold and tired by my tent, but they didn't. Shane was talking about a trip to the city for the things Daryl couldn't shoot with an arrow, bandages and blankets and that sort of stuff. Our leader, with tense hands on his hips, eyes hard and lips tight. Official. Oblivious.

**IV**

When struggling to sleep, I'd lie between the Dixon Brothers and stare at the lousy tent we'd been staying in with the thought of Rose Campbell running away swimming in my head and the faint throbbing in my leg reminding me of what it'd mean to find her again. I never thought I'd be vying for ruthless revenge, but the very thought of her made my fingers twitch with a fiery ache to strangle her. This savagery was surprising, because even thought I knew I'd been the one bashing in the brains of Biters in the forest of Fineshrine, I never thought I was a natural killer. I suppose it was all Rose, and Rose alone - I did not want to hurt anybody but her. I had this vision of it all, of finding her and finally voicing my anger and asking _why_ - _why_ hand the people that had been trying to protect her on a platter to these men she had been with, _why _let them shoot children like Cam and Oliver, and _why _run from these men if she'd really been with them? Perhaps she hadn't willingly been with them. Perhaps she saw Fineshrine and thought she'd found her chance to escape them by sacrificing my friends, the coward.

In a manner of speaking, it was the thought of killing her that kept me stubborn enough to survive everything and I suppose I'd keep trying to find her, no matter how hard that it be because the world was not that small anymore. It was big and it was scary and it was swelling with Biters - but I'd find her. Somehow, I'd find her and when I did, I'd snap her spine in two, if she had even _had _a spine to start with. Instead of counting sheep, I'd count how slowly I'd strangle her, asking if it was all worth it, if it was worth allowing children to _die _because of her cowardice.

I'd survive. I'd survive if it meant finding her again. Then I'd sleep soundly, I was sure of it.

**V**

Ed Peletier was pouting, eyes pulsing and pudgy fingers worming their way around Sophia's waif-like arm hard enough to form pale purple prints. I'd been teaching them, boring stuff that I'd been told by Shane to teach because he hadn't the time - a lie, because he was really screwing Lori in the woodlands. Of course, I couldn't _say _this but I was not stupid. Daryl had seen them skirting towards the forest with Shane's hands firmly around a giggling Lori's waist and Daryl's eyes met mine, his hands making the sort of obscene gestures that left me blushing and telling the children it was the heat that was making me blush such a bright shade of scarlet. I'd been telling them stories when Sophia's smile became a pale grimace, her gaze growing sad and flickering permanently to the floor when she saw her father barreling towards us, holding her arm and hauling her to feet to try tugging her towards their tent where her mother sat stitching his shirts. I stood, shoving my chair aside and swiftly stepping in front of him, staring at him coldly. He didn't budge, didn't blink. He just said, "My daughter's done for the day."

"Don't deny her an education, Ed, just because _you_ clearly didn't have one," I said calmly. Sophia stared between us, then towards her mother who was taking slow steps towards us.

Ed twitched as if I'd tried hitting him, but then stood still. "Get out of my way, or I'll _make _you."

I heard Andrea and Amy promptly gasp like they had become our own special live TV audience, heard Daryl dropping his stuff in case he needs to come rushing between us or something, and then distant protests from Dale. The group had an inkling of what was happening between Ed and his wife, given his temper and the small glimpses of bruises they'd seen across Carol's skin, but nobody had said anything about it. Merle was standing by the RV, eyes roaming towards us. Carol was torn between stepping between us and staying far away from her husband's fury. Sophia was still staring at the floor, squeaking when her father shoved her away and Andrea swiftly stepped in to take her, whispering tender reassurances that everything was fine. The gang was gathering, T-Dog and Glenn slowly emerging from the woods holding logs in their hands to watch, eyes darting between myself and Ed in surprise.

"I'd like to see you try, Ed. Really, I would. Because it wouldn't end well for you."

"You think you can _threaten _me?" he spat. "I don't think so, woman."

I saw gross specks of spittle and gave him a smile.

"You're right," I replied with a shrug. "You _don't _think. I _am _threatening you and I'll tell anybody that'll listen that I'm threatening you, asshole."

He stood closer, bumping against my chest, breathing heavy. "If I was you, I'd be sitting real fast, girl. Not that you can, 'course, with that leg o' yours, but I'll make an allowance for the handicapped - and you best be grateful for that, too. I won't do it again."

He gave my shoulder a harsh shove, pushing past and thundering towards Carol who was pale and petrified. Then I said something that made him stand still, hand about to clamp around Carol's arm, his shoulders tense and tight.

"Keep talking like that, Ed, and I won't be the only one in this camp with a handicap."

For a tense moment, I thought he'd turn around and try attacking me because he was breathing hard and his skin was a hideous beetroot, all bulging veins and venom - but he didn't. The hand that was about to grab Carol fell and he was grumbling to himself, stomping towards their tent and I was almost smiling when I saw the hateful glare Carol gave me and my heart crumbled in my chest. She called out to Sophia, timid and shaky. Her daughter tore herself from Andrea, darting towards her mother and holding her hand tightly. Carol wiped a tear and then she was tugging Sophia towards their tent. I was _defending _her daughter. I hadn't meant to hurt her. I thought I was _helping_ her.

"Didn't I tell ya that mouth a' yours would get ya in trouble one day, sister?" Merle shouted from where he stood, cackling loudly. I stood still, staring at the faint shadows moving within the Peletier tent with Merle's shouts pounding in my ears. "I tol' ya, but did ya listen? Well, _did_ ya?"

I didn't listen. I didn't listen at all.


	7. Six

**A/N: **Thank you for all the reviews, favourites and follows, I really appreciate it :)

**. CHAPTER SIX .**

**I**

Merle was sitting rather studiously in his chair, slowly turning the pages of his book and calmly reading, which meant he wasn't bothering anybody or booming loud enough for Biters to hear us in the library, like he thought a librarian might scold him for speaking. The library itself was in ruins, with rubble lying along its aisles and bookshelves crushing computers and glass glittering where it sat in the bristles of the carpet. I was holding a handful of thrillers and horrors, which I liked reading, limping towards him and slipping into the seat beside him with a blissful sigh of relief. I had thrown a bunch of books in my bag, of whatever genre I could find, because I was going to give them to the folks in the camp and hope they'd have something to choose from. The library hadn't been what Merle and I were looking for, but with him all quiet and calm, I couldn't really complain because in the quarry he'd been loud and bossy and I thought Shane had sent us salvaging because he didn't want Merle around anymore, at least for an hour or two.

"Find somethin' you like, Maisie?"

I hummed, nodding my head. "Yes sir, and something for the others at camp - figured they might be bored, so I brought as many as I could carry in my bag. I hope Daryl likes at least one of them, because I tried finding whatever was left. A lot of them were burnt or taken by looters, I guess."

"Who loots a library?" Merle snorted.

"You seem to like this place," I said, playfully shoving his shoulder. "I've never seen you this calm."

"What you tryin' to say, Peaches? I ain't smart or somethin'? I been in libraries before, a lot of 'em. I read. Pro'ly read more than _you _ever did too, you remember that."

"Oh, I will, don't worry. We should get going soon, Shane said-..."

"I don't give a _shit _what _Shane _said," he sneered. "Like I'd let that son-uva-bitch tell _me _what to do."

"That camp trusts Shane, Merle. Not you," I said steadily, trying not to ignite that temper of his.

"They don't trust you either. Or Daryl, for that matter. They only want us around for _one thing _and that's food, Maisie, don't forget that. Shane can't hunt for shit, even if he was a cop, he scares the damn critter off and sits around scratching his head wonderin' why he can't catch it. Moron," Merle spat. "We're stayin' with them because it's the best thing for us _right now_. But we won't be with them forever."

"You told me the same thing, Merle!" I exclaimed. "You told me that you'd toss me on my ass too, when my leg heals and I won't be _leeching _off you and Daryl."

He shrugged. "And who says that still ain't how it's gon' be? My brother and I, we're best when we're together. We don't need anyone tagging along with us, Peaches."

"We need them," I replied. "_We _need them."

"You tell yourself that then, honey, if it makes you feel better," he grinned, baring all his teeth, and I glared at him. "I don't need nobody 'cept Daryl."

I didn't say anything, turning towards the window instead and staring at the small amount of Biters wandering around the streets. Banging against one another, turning around, then banging against one another again. When I couldn't contain myself any longer, I let out a sigh and said, "You're too stubborn."

"Says you," he laughed, leaning backwards in his chair. "What's the matter, Maisie? You hurtin' 'cause I was mean to you?..." - he let his chair fall, hitting the floor with a muffled _thud _against the carpet - "Listen, girl. I don't hate you. I did, when I first met you, because I thought you'd be a floozy following us around, but you ain't that bad. You ain't that bad, Peaches."

"Gee, _thanks_, Merle. Mighty kind of you to say."

"C'mon, let's get goin'. Daryl says he saw tracks in the forest, might be a deer, and I'm gon' help him tomorrow."

I stood, shrugging my bag onto my shoulder and following him through the library towards the alley where we'd hidden the truck from Biters and strangers alike. "I thought you were going to the city for supplies, with Andrea and Glenn and the others?"

"Hell, I'll be home by sundown and _then_ I'll help Daryl with the deer - that make you happy, woman? We'll sit 'round the campfire, hold hands and sing _Kumbaya _if it makes you feel better."

"Only if you'll hold hands with Shane."

**II**

Daryl's fingertips trailed along delicate grooves in the ground, eyes drinking in even the slightest disturbance in the trees around him. He stood, shifting the strap of his crossbow around his shoulders and said he was certain it was a deer. I sat behind him, leaning against a tree and letting my head rest against its rough bark. We could still hear the humming from the camp, pots and pans banging together, the children chasing each other around in endless circles and laughing loudly. The group had been grateful for the books Merle and I'd brought from the library and I'd left them to take what they liked - at least, those that hadn't gone to the city to try and find supplies, and I was glad Daryl hadn't gone with them because another lonely night around the campfire was all I needed. Together, we strolled towards our tent, and I saw Carol flutter by and my gaze fell to the ground.

"Don't be feelin' guilty 'bout all that with Ed, Maisie," Daryl muttered.

Our shoulders were bumping together, my skin occasionally brushing against the cold steel of his crossbow. "I'm not feeling bad about Ed, not at all. I'd beat him if I could. It's Carol I feel bad about."

"I thought you'd leap on him, let him have it for what he said about your leg."

"Oh, I'd have liked to," I replied, grinning at him. "I think I could take him too."

"No doubt about it," he nodded, but he was smirking.

"You know, he stands by the women when they're washing clothes, smoking a darn cigarette and telling them when they've missed a spot," I sneered, crinkling my nose in disgust. "Can you believe that?"

"No, I can't. He must be doing a piss poor job of it 'cause most a' my clothes always got spots on 'em."

I slapped his shoulder lightly, smothering my laughter. "Daryl! I'm serious!"

"So am I! Can't go huntin' in this, them dead bastards look cleaner than I do-..."

"Daryl!"

"Alright, alright," he smiled, holding his hands in surrender. "Guy's an asshole, I get it."

We stood at our tent, and he stooped to step inside it and I sat in the sun-chair we had, waiting for him. I could hear him moving around, taking his crossbow apart, probably about to clean it and put it together again mostly because of boredom. The ashes of the fire I'd lit last night sat in a neat pile, staining the fine dirt of the ground beneath it a dull grey. I shut my eyes for a moment, trying to blot out the burning sunlight.

"Maisie?"

My eyes popped open, peering at an obviously shy Sophia. She was standing and twisting the hem of her shirt like I'd seen her mother do sometimes, delicate doe-eyes staring solemnly into mine. Then, very softly, she said, "Thanks. For what you did, with my-...with my Dad, and all. I'm not mad with you or anything, even though my Mom sort of was. He was acting scary and I thought he'd-...Thanks, is all."

I was surprised Sophia had even spoken to me, that she had thought about what had happened deeply enough to decide that she was thankful for what I did. I wondered if her father hit her like he did her mother, or if he had been about to when I fought with him and if that meant she had been spared from something brutal. I was momentarily stunned by this child with her melancholy smile and her brown eyes heavy with a burden I thought she shouldn't have to carry. I was awash with sorrow for her, because she shouldn't _have _to say thank you and she shouldn't _have_ to be afraid of her father.

"You're welcome, Sophia," I said, slowly smiling at her. That smile fell when I tried thinking of what to tell her without frightening her. Without angering Carol should Sophia tell her what I was about to say. "If you're - If you're _afraid _again...If he's acting scary, then you find me and I'll help you, alright? I'll always help you, I promise. You understand what I'm saying?"

She nodded quickly, and this shy little girl grinned at me. "I understand." She shifted her weight from foot to foot, then asked, "Are you eating alone tonight? Or are you gonna go with Shane's group again?"

Again, I was surprised. I hadn't thought Sophia had seen that, because she ate with her parents around their own tent, Ed telling everyone it was for _privacy _when really it was obvious he didn't want anyone snooping around his place. My eyes slid towards the tent where Daryl sat, his shadow hunching above his crossbow. "Actually, I'm eating with Daryl. He'll be around tonight, he doesn't have to hunt or anything. Why? Do you want to join us?"

She stood with her spine rigid, shaking her head firmly, stray strands of sandy blonde hair brushing against her skin - really serious, for a girl that was that little and lanky. "Oh, no - I didn't mean - I have to eat with my parents, I just-...I didn't want you to be alone." Her eyes slid towards where Carl was eagerly waving towards her, his mother close behind him. "I better get going. Bye, Maisie."

She rushed towards Carl and crashed into him, chasing him when he tagged her and then ran. I watched her weave between Andrea and Amy, giggling wildly and shouting at Carl that she'd catch him, and I was stupidly grinning at her.

"What you smilin' 'bout?"

Daryl was squinting to see me, his hand held above his eyes to shield them from the sunlight. I told him all that Sophia had said. When I was finished, his eyes were following her from where she was still trying to catch Carl, and all he said was, "Sweet girl, huh?"

I sank lower in my seat, stretching my leg and smiling at him with a nod. "Sweet girl."

**III**

Amy is anxious, chewing her thumbnail and twitching whenever she hears the slightest crunch of gravel from where she sits in a chair, glaring at the us if we utter _she'll be alright, Amy _or _Andrea's a big girl, she can handle herself_, because that's bullshit. I said this aloud and I was given this spiteful stare from Amy and the group sitting around her, trying to soothe her. I'll admit I was actually tense too, because Merle went with them and - well, nobody was patting my shoulder saying _he'll be alright, Maisie _or anything. Daryl rose at dawn, rumbling sleepily that he had a deer to shoot, and whenever the bushes rustled or the trees bristled, I hoped it was him. I was staying calm, coolly shrugging off the concerns of the camp - Merle was a tough man, he'd been through many things, he'd survive trawling through the city for supplies. Daryl was hunting a _deer_ and I hardly doubt Bambi could hurt him - but a Biter could. In my mind's eye, I saw him dragging himself along the leaves, letting out whimpers because he'd been badly hurt and we couldn't hear him calling out to us, a Biter stumbling close behind him, its hungry groans being the last thing he heard before it-...

I had to stand, mumbling an excuse about needing the bathroom, not even daring to glance Amy or Dale. I don't want to be with them. I want to hide and wait for the brothers, however long they might be, heading towards the lake. I'd like to be alone again, because honestly I don't want to be around anyone but the brothers because everyone is too eager to be _happy_, to smother any morbid thoughts, afraid to acknowledge that anyone might be hurt. I pause by my tent to take fresh bandages from my bag, and when I finally stand alone at the lake, I peel the old ones from around my leg and stare at the stitches - the skin surrounding them a pale purple, slowly sewing itself together again. I stay by the lake for a long time, sometimes swimming, sometimes floating languidly in the water. I don't want to be around Amy and her anxiety, or see Lori's longing stares at Shane. When the sun sets, I still don't leave the lake.

**IV**

In the morning, I stay in my tent, snuggling beneath my blankets and sleeping because there isn't much else to do; and surprisingly everyone leaves me alone, when I thought I'd have Shane shouting orders or someone asking for a helping hand. If Merle was at the camp, I'd hear him or he'd come looking for his brother to tell him all about their trip to the city, and since I haven't heard his loud voice vibrating through the air, I can safely assume he's not around. Daryl said hunting deer was always slow because they're skittish, darting away if they sense something's amiss and that meant he had to be careful about it. By midday, when I have to limp to the bushes for the 'bathroom', I realised that really I was not avoiding anybody - _they_ were all avoiding _me_, with Lori brushing by without a word and Jim saying something about having to see Jacqui. I was wandering towards the RV, not in much of a rush but with this niggling worry in my tummy, especially when Dale saw me and whispered something into Shane's ear. Shane came strolling towards me, wringing his cap in his hands, as if he was about to apologise for something and I thought, _this is it. Daryl or Merle, one of them is dead. This is what Shane is about to tell me._

The group is gathering like they did when I fought with Ed, all shady and fearful, eyes shifting between us. I stand still, staring at him. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again - a cowardly fish trying to figure out what to say. Behind him is a red car I don't recognize and a man with his arm around Lori's shoulder, lips resting against her forehead and I'm baffled, wondering who he is and why Shane isn't furious about how his hands run along Lori's spine as if he's trying to soothe her. The men had been pulling parts from the car, but they're staring at us with hands held to cover their eyes from the sun. The man gently touching Lori tries taking a step towards Shane and I, and when she tries tugging him against her again, he says something and she lets go of him. Shane shifts his weight around, guilty eyes darting between this stranger who stands beside him, holding his hand out as if he wants me to shake it and the group around us hold their breath in anticipation.

"Maisie Bellerose, if I'm not mistaken?"

I nod in bewilderment, take his sweaty hand, shake it briefly. "I'm guessing you're the bringer of bad news."

"Excuse me?" he says, letting out a short laugh, but when he sees that my lips don't even twitch his smile dies.

"Everyone's looking pretty guilty," I replied, glancing around. "Like they've been hiding something, and they're making the perfect stranger tell me what it is that's making them _feel guilty_. I'm not wrong, am I?"

"Uh, Maisie, this is-..."

Shane is cut off by cries and screams from the forest behind him, and they scatter in a frenzy because it's the children shrieking. The group, who had been watching us, gather weapons and bolt towards the booming screams. I can't run, can't rush with them. With this stupid leg, I'm left standing alone again in a cloud of dust with the distant cries of children echoing all around and my eyes watering because I'm afraid Daryl or Merle might be dead. I can hardly breathe because I am convinced of it, that this is what Shane and the stranger had been about to say. Then, slowly, like a trickle of water they return, shaken and scared and still refusing to meet my worried stare. I hear whispers that it was a Biter - _in the woods? What's it doing this far out? Looking for __food__? _- and then, bursting from the clearing comes Daryl Dixon, his crossbow in his hands and dead squirrels swinging from his shoulders and I want to cry I'm that happy.

"Maisie? What's the matter with you, where's Merle? Why you lookin' like you're 'bout to cry?"

Probably because I am. "I don't know where he is, Daryl-..."

"Daryl, we've been waitin' to talk to you, _both _of you," Shane calls out, climbing the small hill and still clutching his hat. "Can you hold up a minute?"

Daryl swings around, the squirrels almost slipping from his shoulder, but he drags them and stares firmly at Shane with the sort of glare I'm guessing I've got on my face too. "About what?"

"About Merle. There was a, uh, a problem in Atlanta."

I can't help but feel as if we're their prey, because they're circling us and Daryl's trying to take this all in, pacing around and looking like he's feeling trapped. "He dead?"

"We're not sure," Shane said calmly.

Daryl turned towards me, his eyes silently questioning this before he boomed, "He either is or he ain't!"

"No easy way to say this, so I'll just say it," the stranger tries, stepping closer to us.

"Who're you?"

"Rick Grimes."

"Grimes, huh?" My eyes shift towards a guilty Lori who leans from the doorway of Dale's RV, but I realise she doesn't have the spine to meet my gaze. "Would you like tell us what happened?"

"You heard her, _Rick Grimes_. Where's my brother?" Daryl asked.

"Your brother was a danger to us all," Rick replied, "so I handcuffed him on a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there."

"Hold on, let me process this - you're saying you handcuffed my brother to a _roof_, and you _left him there_?" Daryl roars.

All Rick Grimes can say is, "Yeah."

I've heard of being angry enough that you sort of black out and all you can see is red because you're in such a rage, and I thought I was pretty close to it, absolutely _rattling _with pulsating rage, because I'm realising that I'm surrounded by cowards again. I'm clenching my fists in fury, and I want to beat them all senseless for being such cruel _bastards_. Instead, Daryl does it for me, shaking the squirrels from his shoulder and tossing them aside, taking a dive at Rick but Shane smashes into him and they drop to the dusty ground, grunting and growling. Daryl rips his knife from its sheath, making wild stabs at Rick and Shane but they hold him in choke-hold, clenching his throat to calm him. He's rabid, an animal, roaring at them and I feel flush with fury because _this is not right_.

They're promising him they'll take him to Atlanta, with T-Dog admitting it was him who left Merle in the blistering sun with his wrist tied to a piece of metal, but really I can hardly hear him them because the blood is rushing to my head - this is another betrayal, _another _bunch of lying bastards. In a daze, I hear Daryl say he'll head to the city himself and then he's stomping towards our tent and I can tell he's crying.

"You spineless cowards. You spineless _cowards_."

Rick, who had been standing with his hands on his hips, raises his head in surprise and Lori ducks her head, because I'm glaring at them all. Even Ed Peletier pauses in taking a cigarette from his chest pocket. It was like they'd forgotten I was still here, having had to fight Daryl. I'm glad the children aren't around to hear my curses, the spiteful hatred spilling from my mouth. Shane rubs his head with a heavy sigh, Andrea and Amy gravitating towards Dale who stares with a wide gaze of surprise.

"What you did to Merle is what happened to _me_! This leg - I - _I _was left behind, _I _was left to die by a spineless _coward _like you!" I screamed. "How could you do that to another human being? Don't give me that shit about Merle being _difficult_. _I _wasn't difficult, and I was still left behind. That's not an excuse. So what was it, huh?"

Rick let his head hang low, eyes squinting in the sunlight. "Maisie, I'm sorry, but you don't understand-..."

"Don't say it," I spat, letting out a laugh of spite. "Don't you _dare _say, _Maisie, I'm sorry you almost lost your leg and all but Merle was being difficult, we __had__ to leave him behind, you don't understand_. Because you can try to make your excuses, as if it's all Merle's fault, but there isn't a reason other than rotten _cowardice_, and you all know it but you can't bring yourselves to say it! So don't even _try_ to say I don't understand. Because I _do_ understand - I understand _perfectly_, because I know what it's like to be left behind. Spineless, _spineless_ assholes."

It was the most I had ever said to them at all once and in my head I thought it was the most I ever _would _say, because Daryl and I would be leaving to find Merle and then it would be _us_ leaving _them _behind, and we'd see how they liked it.

**V**

Daryl is a snarling beast, baring his teeth and stuffing weapons in a duffel bag. He is vicious and venomous and ignores everything I say, even when I try holding his shoulders to steady him - he shoves me aside. It stings, especially when I stumble with my bad leg, my skin flushing beetroot - and his pacing, his pure fury, fades for a moment and he forgets to be mad. Instead his shoulders sag with sadness and his eyes swell with tears he won't shed, not even when he sees that _I'm _crying because I can't control myself, not when I'm thinking of Merle, helpless and hollering for us. Daryl finally collapses, falling to the floor and covering his head with his hands and I sit beside him, smothering my shaky breathing.

"They just left him," he says weakly. "Just-..._left _him behind like he didn't mean nothin' to 'em. I guess he didn't. Just a _hillbilly_, after all."

"Daryl-..."

"I know what they say about us!" he spat, startling me when he faced me, eyes full of frustration. "_Merle Dixon and his damn hick brother_ _Daryl_. I ain't stupid, Maisie. They might think I am, but I ain't."

"We'll leave, if you like. Find Merle by ourselves and then make it on our own again," I offered softly. He tensed when I touched his shoulder, but he didn't shake me away again.

"You ain't comin'."

"What?"

"You ain't comin'," he repeated. He stood up abruptly and my hand fell from his shoulder, landing limply in my lap, my mind struggling to understand what he'd said. He was bursting from the tent, the flaps fluttering behind him and I had to scramble to my feet to follow him. I was too slow, and when I finally caught up with him he was holding crossbow and counting his arrows one last time, fixing the strap, frowning angrily.

"Daryl, what do you mean I'm not coming? I want to find Merle too," I said defiantly. I wasn't sure if he meant I couldn't come with him to find Merle or if he meant I couldn't come with them _at all_, as if this was the moment they'd leave me behind.

"Are you stupid or somethin' Maisie? You'd slow us down, that leg's dead weight where we're going, and we ain't gon' argue about it. You been with us a while, but I'm gon' go get Merle, because he's _my _brother. So you just stay here at camp and wait for us, understand?"

Somehow, that seemed to hurt a lot harder than it had when that bear-trap bit my leg and tore it to shreds, because it felt as if Daryl had done the same thing to my soul when he said that. He brushed by me, bumping my shoulder - and this time he didn't stop when I stumbled.


	8. Seven

**A/N: Thank you again for all reviews, favourites and follows! Greatly appreciated! :)**

**. CHAPTER SEVEN . **

**I**

The camp is curiously quiet; they wander around the quarry, trying to avoid coming anywhere close to where I sit at the edge of a peer, legs dangling over the ledge, because they're obviously afraid and probably ashamed, too. The women sit by the water, chatting and washing clothes, even if it is something they are not entirely willing to do - I figure they fear that by washing clothes instead of carrying guns they'll someday have to fight for the right to vote again, if the world ever does return to what it was. I've been sitting in the sun long enough for my freckles to blossom along my nose and cheekbones, not that I'd care even if I was blistering, because I'm still angry. Somehow, I'm always angry. Ed Peletier stands close to the laughing women because he can't stand to ever let Carol be alone, puffing a cigarette, slowly poisoning himself. He's staring hard at them, puny brain pondering why the women could possibly be laughing, like they should beg him for permission to even _smile_. Shane and Carl are catching frogs, with Shane casting furtive glances at where I sit glowering at the water. I'm hoping that Daryl did not mean all that he said, because I need him and I need Merle and I need them more than I need this group - that's a given, because it seems they're splitting at the seams, with Shane struggling to maintain his grip and Merle going missing. It reflects badly on Shane, with Rick being the humble hero that the camp has been whispering about ever since he arrived, as if the revelation that he was comatose and had _still_ survived this shit meant he was another Jesus and we should just bow to him already.

It was not that I did not want to do whatever Shane said or anything, or that I thought he was lousy leader. I wasn't hoping for a mutiny in which we tied stones to his shoes and stood around watching him sink to the bottom of the river in some weird sort of ritual simply because I was angry with him - no, it was actually Rick that made me realise Shane's sway was slipping. Whenever Shane said something, I thought it was blatantly obvious that Lori was not listening, because she was often staring at her loving husband and her little boy. Feeling grateful, I guess, but guilty too. Speaking of Lori, I saw her stomping towards Shane, long hair swinging and eyes livid, eating Shane alive with angry words. She had taken Carl from him, tugging him towards the camp. Her eyes met mine, and in a flutter they fell to the floor. I let out a low raspberry, reigning in that temper that was rattling through my bones.

Ed Peletier was clutching Carol's arm, the women surrounding him and screeching at him like shrill birds, trying to batter him. It was actually the harsh _slap _that had my head turning towards them, surprised at Andrea's anger, at how they tried stepping between him and his wife. I didn't do anything apart from stare, because Shane was suddenly dragging Ed along the dirt and dust, dropping him and crushing his chest - then he let him have it, punching Ed Peletier purple and blue, bloody and plump with bruises. He hit him with bare knuckles and kicked him with heavy boots and hurt him with everything he had in him. He stood and let Carol caress what I wish had been a corpse, but Ed was spitting teeth and blood from what I could tell, his wife crying for him as if he was something to care about. I don't feel guilty for wishing him dead, because he didn't feel guilty when hurting his wife and his daughter. I didn't feel a _damn thing _apart from regret that Shane hadn't buried him alive beneath the sand.

Carol was crying, shaking hands holding her husband's swollen head and cradling it against her chest. Shane stood, swaying slightly and mindlessly wiping spots of blood from his forehead, the baffled women watching him as if he was a stranger in their midst. I couldn't help myself - I clapped slowly, smiling. All eyes apart from Carol's swept from a whimpering Ed to where I sat, and still I clapped. Shane was staring at me in a strange sort of daze, like he couldn't comprehend what was happening around him, and then he staggered dizzily towards the camp. The women, they were watching him warily, and when my clapping ceased, they collapsed beside Carol and tried consoling her. She heard nothing but her nasally husband's struggle to breathe with blood bubbling in his throat and seeping from his nostrils.

Shane was simply a shepherd trying to soothe his straying sheep, who are slowly starting to wonder if they should even be following him at all - and if Shane the Leader fell, we'd likely fall with him. We'd suffer for it. Oh, how we'd suffer for it.

**II**

In the morning, I find Jim tied to a tree, just mumbling to himself. Lori and Carol are calmly teaching the fidgeting children, who don't even really want to learn but reluctantly sit and listen to what their mothers tell them, because surely you can count the Biters trying to eat you and _still _have fun. When I stroll by, the same things happens; everyone becomes silent, a soft hush sweeping across them, all shifty but I'm tired because I didn't sleep well without Daryl and Merle, my eyes heavy with exhaustion. I collapse in a chair beside Sophia, surprising her and Carol. I yawn loudly, then stretch my bad leg, blowing a raspberry like I did when I saw Lori yesterday because a stinging pain pulses through my skin and makes me shudder. Lori sits close to Carl, calmly scribbling the solution to an equation, but her son's eyes are watching Jim, who lifts his head and smiles wearily at him.

"Apparently, while I've been in bed, Jim has become a leper," I said lightly. Everyone stares in surprise, because I haven't said a word, not a word since Daryl's departure.

"It's not funny, Maisie."

My eyes drift lazily towards Lori, who leans her arms against the table and sighs. I roll my eyes. "I never said it was. I'm simply wondering why we're holding him hostage is all."

"He's not feeling well," Carol whispered. "Shane says he's been in the sun too long, that he was losing it a little. Had to force him to sit in the shade before he fried."

Shane arrives with a bucket of soothing water and dutifully douses Jim, with Dale standing beside them. Morales passes by and tosses me an apple, perhaps a silent apology for all that happened, because he's the sort to say sorry even if he isn't really the reason for it happening at all. Morales was mostly a pacifist, from what I could tell about him, but he was willing to do what he must if it meant protecting his family. I nod gratefully at him, but really I'm watching this gentle Shane with narrowed eyes, kindly giving Jim water, hearing his soft reassurances that things will be alright even with his bloody knuckles still raw from ripping Ed to shreds.

**III**

Without Daryl and Merle, I am alone at sea, struggling to swim; I didn't ever expect myself to become this attached to them, to ache with loneliness and longing when they're not around. I hide in my tent for hours, because I hate hearing the whispers of worry, that they might be dead or dying and we can't do anything about it because they're still in the city. When I can't stand my buzzing brain any longer, I limp from tent and try to find a distraction, drifting towards the warmth of the fire and the laughter of the camp having dinner. Dale's hand shifts around his gun, a painful habit that is born from my limp being somewhat similar to the lumbering of a Biter, but when he sees who I am, he smiles and seems to feel guilty for it, but I don't blame him - honestly, I lumber around like Frankenstein's monster when the pain flares. I didn't want to be alone tonight, because without Daryl and Merle that usually small tent becomes utterly massive. I sat with Carol and Sophia, sinking in my chair beside them. I heard their mindless chatter with my hand holding my head up, slumping and closing my eyes slowly because even if I'd been in the tent for hours, I hadn't really been sleeping. I bit my lip when the throbbing in my leg burned from my twisting around in my chair trying to get comfy, and then I heard Carl timidly ask, "Does it hurt, Maisie?"

A hush swept across the group after Carl had said this, his mother's hand attaching itself to his shoulder as if suctioning herself to him, all gazing at me. I sat a little straighter, shrugging at him with a small smile. "Yeah. It hurts."

"Don't bother Maisie, Carl, leave her be," Lori told him softly.

"He isn't - He isn't bothering me," I said, feeling flush all of a sudden. I think she was afraid I'd get angry again, like I did when I was told Merle had been left behind. I didn't want them to shield their children from me as if I was this hideous monster who might hurt them and, really, I didn't want any of the adults to be afraid of me either. They're not bad people - I've _seen_ bad people, they're nothing like them. I thought I should tell them, or at least try to, about my leg. "I don't mean to be-..._angry_. What I told you all was the truth. I was left behind. I got mad about Merle because-..."

"Maisie, you don't have to explain yourself to us if you don't want to," Dale smiled gently, shaking his head.

"No, I do. I do. I was alone for a long time when I found this man. Elijah. His name was Elijah. He brought me to a house called Fineshrine, and it was falling apart and full of corpses but we cleaned it and made it ours. We had a lot of people in our group, and a lot of children too, all things considered. Anyway, we had a forest around us with traps all over it to catch the Biters if they got too close, and it was my-... my _job_ to get rid of them." I paused, taking a shaky breath, plunging right in. "I found a woman in the forest. Rose Campbell. Alone and afraid and begging me not to shoot her."

Lori had her hands around Carl, cradling him to her chest and for a moment when I saw her son's eyes wide and then her worry, I wondered if it looked like I was telling a ghost story instead of how I got this gory leg.

"You didn't...did you?" Amy asked quietly, because I was running my finger along my lower lip, thinking about how I could tell them all of this without crying. I always cried even when I only _thought _about it - saying it aloud was obviously worse.

"Shoot her? No. No, I didn't shoot her. I threatened her, telling her if she thought about hurting us or anything, _then _I'd shoot her. It was my job to keep the forest, and therefore Fineshrine, safe. I thought that was what I should do, but when I brought her to the house, my friends were furious with me for threatening her because Elijah was always welcoming to everybody. He thought this world was not all bad. I went to bed, angry with them all because I thought I was right to threaten Rose. I guess I was." I smiled bitterly, shaking my head. "She was with a gang of about thirty men, or at least this is what she told me. They set Fineshrine on fire, shot two boys in their bedroom. Did stuff that I couldn't see because I was trying to escape the fire with my friends. They were shot too."

If a bomb had exploded nearby, they would not have heard it because they sat totally engrossed in all that I was saying. Carol was holding Sophia's hand, softly running her finger along Sophia's knuckles. Shane had his hands around his eyes, peeking through them, as if he was hoping to hide from this story, occasionally glancing at Lori and Carl beside him. Dale was calm, bushy eyebrows drawn together in consideration. A morbid therapy session, this is what this was.

"I ran for the forest because the house was burning, burning fast. I saw a firing squad shooting my friends, four of them. I don't know if anyone else survived because I ran into the forest and I was crying and I didn't even know where I was going or what I was doing because I was terrified and then I-...I stood on a bear-trap."

I heard their gasps, especially Lori's, horrified, letting her eyes fall to my bandages. This is when I was squirming and grimacing, because I had a great hatred for talking about that hideous gash scarring my calf - I was sort of _ashamed _of it, I guess.

"How'd you...How'd you get out of it?" Glenn asked.

"I used shoelaces." Then I had to laugh a little, because I thought of Merle mocking me about it, and they all sort of flinched in surprise, like they thought I was about burst into a flood of tears instead. "Well, I mean - it had this screw you had to twist to get it to let go, right? But you're still sitting with your bone cut in half and your skin all split-..."

"Maisie," Lori whispered softly, head nodding at Carl and Sophia. Children. Who shouldn't hear that sort of stuff. I forgot all about them, my head buzzing with thoughts of Fineshrine burning and bear-traps.

"Sorry," I apologised. "I was putting my bone in its place with the shoelaces, that's all I'll say about it. Then Rose appears and she pukes because it isn't very pretty, what I'm doing. I'm waiting for her to help, to do _something_, and then she does - she says sorry. She tells me she was with the men that did all of this and that I should understand that she _had _to do this to survive. She stole from us, she had a bag with all our stuff and then - then she ran. She left us behind, like a distraction for her because she was trying to escape from this gang she was with. She left me behind."

Shane let out a slow breath he'd been holding, ducking his head to his chest and then darting his eyes towards Lori again. She didn't look at him. His disappointed eyes fell and found the floor, scuffing his shoes against the dirt.

"I did what I could with my leg and then I went towards this dirt road, all dizzy and delirious, when I saw a Biter coming towards me and I couldn't do anything to stop him. Then an arrow goes right through its eye, and it falls and-..."

"Daryl!" Sophia blurts excitedly, surprising us all because she's usually shy. She realises everyone is staring at her and blushes bright scarlet. "It was Daryl, wasn't it?"

I smiled at her. "Sure was. Merle, too. They brought me to this house they'd been hiding in and helped stitch my leg and bandage it."

"_Merle_? _Merle _did that?" Glenn asked incredulously, and the group laughed, happy for a shred of light in such a sad story. His eyes darted around us all. "No, seriously, _Merle_?"

"I told you he wasn't all bad," I grinned at Glenn. "It was mostly Daryl, but Merle did help too. I'm _alive_ because of them. I mean, I got a bad limp and all, but what does that matter? And when I find Rose Campbell again, I'll use a spoon to gauge her-..."

"_Maisie_!" Lori hissed, once again nodding her head towards Carl and Sophia, who stared between us in confusion.

"Oops, sorry."

They laughed at my apologetic blush, all of them, even Lori who loosened up a little and let Carl sit in his own chair, ruffling his hair with a smile. For a long time we sat, laughing and joking, and just _smiling_. It was comforting. Strange, but comforting. I was sleepy again, Dale's distant humming about his watch lulling me into a haze, slumping and smiling stupidly to myself because I felt like, by telling them about my leg, a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Then it comes crashing down again with a scream that makes me sit bolt straight, spine rigid and rushing to stand. In the chaos, Shane hands me a gun and then scrambles for his shotgun, because he knows I've got good aim and in the confusion I protect Sophia and Carol, who are clutching one another and crying.

I've haven't had to shoot a Biter in a while, but it's not something you forget.

One Biter stumbling towards me has a limp of her own, her kneecap seemingly slipping at an odd angle that means she has to hold her arms out for balance whenever she takes a wobbly step. When she bares her teeth and dangles her arms to try and grab Sophia, I am no longer Limping Maisie - I am Military Maisie, mowing down Biters without mercy, shooting again and again, as if I'm in the forest of Fineshrine again. I shoot five Biters and they all fall, blood bursting from shattering skulls and milky white eyeballs staring blankly at the stars. Carol tries taking Sophia towards their tent, perhaps hoping to hide in it, but I catch her arm and tug her towards me again, shooting another Biter that bursts from the bushes. I feel this popping in my ear and almost fall from the pressure, eyes scrunching together in pain because Shane has shot a Biter right beside my ear and the ringing is building, and I'm losing my already lopsided balance. My gun falls from my hand, which I hold against my ear because it feels as if it has burst. It's disorientating and when I turn around, a Biter is darting for my jugular and I just stumble in surprise and it grabs my arm and-...

It crumbles, falling against my chest and crushing me against the floor. It's heavy, blood dribbling from its head that has been hit hard enough for the skull to reveal brain, and the ringing in my ear dims enough for me to hear, "Maisie! Maisie, answer me, _Maisie_-..."

The Biter is harshly torn from my body, tossed aside and then I'm being lifted, arms snaking beneath my legs and hoisting me in the air. I'm bouncing around, my brain boggled by the shouting that echoes in my sore ear and I struggle, squirming around and trying to get on the ground again because I can't see Sophia or Carol anymore. I glance upwards, and find it's Daryl holding me in his arms, slipping in leaves and blood towards the bushes but a Biter stands between us and our escape and Daryl fumbles and we fall. He hits me hard in the chest and his knee bashes against my leg and I scream because it _burns_, the pain blinding and Daryl tries keeping calm, hauling his crossbow from its strap and aiming an arrow for the brain of the Biter. The thing about Daryl is he rarely misses his target - he hits it square in the head, right where he wants it to hit and it drops.

"Maisie? Maisie, you hearin' me?"

"I hear you," I said hoarsely, the screaming making my voice sore.

"I'm sorry," he apologises gruffly, grabbing my shoulders and hauling me to my feet.

"It's alright, it was an accident, you didn't mean to hit my-..."

"Not your leg," he mutters, then pauses. "Well, that too but I meant about what I said...before I left, I'm sorry-..."

A shadow in front of us fell, screaming and trying to shove the Biter sinking its rotten teeth into their flesh away from them, and Daryl drags us both right by without waiting. "Daryl, is this _really _the time for apologies?"

"Prolly not," he replies, and we're rushing towards the RV. I'm hopping with my arm around his shoulder because my leg is still burning and he's practically lifting me, pulling me along with him. He has blood staining his flesh, from his face to his arms and splotches splashing his shirt and I can tell he's being bashing in more brains than I care to mention. Then there is silence and it startles us. He leans me against the RV and I lift my leg, standing like a freaking flamingo in the midst of this madness, and find Andrea frantically trying to stop the blood flowing from Amy's neck but she needn't bother. Amy is dead, and I have to close my eyes to calm myself, focusing on the feeling of Daryl's hand holding mine. He's alive. He's _alive_.

I pause and peer up at him, whispering, "Where's Merle? Did he make it? Daryl?"

He shakes his head and my heart crumbles.

I can hear Carl crying, his father crushing him against his chest and whispering something to him that I can't hear, a family standing together - with Shane hovering close by. Our tents are torn to shreds, blood streaming from the bodies strewn around our camp, and I turn towards Daryl, closing my eyes and crushing myself against his chest because I don't want to see death and despair again. His breathing is heavy, and I can hear his heartbeat, and in my head I imagine a hummingbird rushing around beneath his ribcage.

"It's happening again," I mumbled against his shirt, but he could hear me. I know he could. "We're falling apart again."

He said nothing, nothing at all; and in saying nothing I thought that meant that he agreed.


	9. Eight

**. CHAPTER EIGHT . **

**I**

We sweep the dead from the dirt road, casting cautious glances at Andrea who sits by the RV gently rubbing Amy's cold skin and whispering to her. We're waiting for Amy to rise, waiting for the moment when we have to rush towards the sisters and shoot her, but we can't tell what Andrea might be thinking. She brushes Amy's blonde hair and crouches protectively against her chest, and Dale hovers nervously nearby with his gun and good intentions. Daryl hauls a pickaxe above his head with strong arms and lets it fall, pulverizing the skull of the dead lying all around the camp, and he does this without any complaints. Somehow, Merle had beaten me even in losing a limb - I mean, I hadn't really _lost _my leg, but with such an irritating limp it was almost as if I had, but Merle went that little bit further and chopped his hand clean off. I didn't believe he was dead, not that bastard, he was too tough. I'm helping with the mandatory burning of bodies, a scarf around my mouth like a veil, lugging logs behind Glenn and T-Dog, who gag because of the vicious _stench_ that lingers. I pause when Daryl pounds towards me, looking mean and pacing around like a dog about to pounce, and eventually he huffs and says, "They ain't gon' do nothin' 'bout the dead girl. They ain't even gon' _try _because Andrea held to a gun to Officer Friendly o'er there!"

I held my hand over my eyes because of the sizzling sun, watching Rick with his hands on his hips whispering to Shane. "She held a _gun_ to him?"

"Sure did," he nodded, still marching around, nearly steaming from his ears he's that angry about it.

Inwardly, I'm thinking Daryl is mostly mad about Merle and doesn't really do well with emotions he can't express, because this is almost always what he does when he's angry about something. It happens when he stays silent for too long, he tries smothering it, but it'll get loose somehow. It always does.

"She lost her sister, Daryl."

"And I lost my brother!" he almost shouts, but when a handful of the group glance at us in surprise at how loud he is, he lowers his voice and says softly, "I lost Merle. You don't see me holdin' a gun to anybody's head."

_Yet_. "I know. I know you did, Daryl, and I'm sorry. We'll find him again, he has to be alive-..."

"How would _you_ know?" he snaps, but I see the flicker of hope in his eyes - he _wants _to hear someone else say that Merle is alive. He's aching for it.

"Because he's the toughest son of a bitch I have ever met, including you, and you're pretty tough already. Maybe Andrea isn't, Daryl. And maybe she never will be, or maybe she'll learn to be, but until then you've got to give her a chance to grieve, alright?"

I say it calmly, because that's what gets Daryl to stop pacing and puffing his chest like he's itching for a fight. He nods, slowly, trying to convince himself that I'm telling him the truth and that he needs to control himself, which he does. Daryl is good at grounding himself. I hug him. I do it without thinking, wrapping my arms around him and pressing myself against his neck, not worrying about how he tenses. Daryl doesn't hug - he doesn't give them and he doesn't get them, but nobody has said _sorry about your brother _to him, not even when he drags the bodies of others' friends and families to burn for them so that they don't have to. "Merle will make it, Daryl. You have to believe that."

"I do. I just didn't think anybody else did," he mumbles, his breath tickling my ear. "Nobody gives a shit about Merle in this group. They're worryin' 'bout the pretty dead girl and her psycho sister, that's what they're worryin' 'bout."

Somewhere in that brain of mine, I understand that Daryl isn't angry that they aren't doing something about Amy and Andrea - he's angry because they aren't doing something about Merle, even if it is giving small apology for what he's going through, _his _grief. Daryl smashes in skulls and he burns bodies and he wipes spots of blood from his sweating forehead with sore hands that he says nothing about, because he wants to be strong and tough like his brother - and nobody in this group gets it, that his anger is all he gets from all that he does because they don't _appreciate_ what he does. They see Daryl Dixon and believe he's a darn _hillbilly _with no manners and no brain, because this is what he wants. He doesn't want to be close with them, doesn't want to care for them- but he does. He can't help himself.

**II**

I'm gulping from a glass of water when it happens; Jacqui tells us that Jim has been bit, and Daryl barrels past to protect us, swinging his pickaxe, as if Jim's already dead - and I suppose he is, harsh as it seems to say it. We corner him, as if he's a rabid animal, and he rushes for a weapon when T-Dog catches him and holds him steady. Jim is pleading feebly with us when we see his bite, the bloody punctures of teeth staining his stomach and I feel faint because he's a friend but we're all staring around because something has to happen. Even when it's Daryl lifting Jim's shirt, I want to pull him away as if he'll get bitten just by being _near _him, breathing the same _air _as him, which is stupid but I feel this burning fear all the same, but the rest of them do too, with Rick standing by his wife and Shane nervously rubbing his head. Daryl stumbles away from Jim in a daze and I latch onto his hand, tugging him towards me because of that niggling worry he'll be bitten even if Jim isn't a Biter and he squeezes my hand tight, but never looks away from that blood streaming through Jim's shirt.

We huddled together, a handful of jurors without a Judge, just standing around trying to figure out Jim's fate. Inwardly, I was a muddle of memories, thinking of Anna who was hoping she'd die at my hands if it meant not becoming a Biter, but this was different. Jim did not want to die. He sat by the RV, head in his hands, sweating and scared that we'd decide to shoot him or something - which is what Daryl wants to do, and that venomous anger of his is like a volcano about to spew lava. He's even pacing with his pickaxe held in his hand, and I stood between him and Shane, who Daryl doesn't like to begin with. Daryl muttered, "I say we put a pickaxe in his head and the dead girl's and be done with it."

"Is that what you'd want?" Shane asked.

"Yeah, and I'd thank you while you did it," he replied instantly, and I snorted, shaking my head.

"This is funny to you?" Shane hissed, with that righteousness in his voice that was incredibly frustrating when he was anything _but _righteous. "This is a man's _life _Maisie, I don't think you understand-..."

"I understand perfectly," I snapped sharply.

"Good because this ain't something small, it's-..."

"Do I not just tell you I understand, because now it sort of seems like _you're _the one having trouble understanding Shane-..."

"Enough," Rick said firmly, holding his hands between us - and we didn't say another word, only gave a small nod in agreement with Rick, and I thought once again he had all the authority of a leader that Shane was losing.

"I hate to say it, I never thought I would, but maybe Daryl's right," Dale interrupted softly, glancing between us all.

Daryl, who had been carefully watching Shane with narrowed eyes, turned towards Dale in surprise and then he stood a little taller, loosening his shoulders.

"He's not a monster Dale, or some rabid dog," Rick grumbled.

"I'm not suggesting-..."

"He is a sick, _sick_ man," Rick continued, not even pausing to give Dale a chance. My eyes slid towards Jim, solemnly staring at us and I turned around again, holding my breath because I hated him sitting there, _knowing _what we were talking about. "If we go down that road, where do we draw the line?"

"Line's pretty clear," Daryl stated firmly. "Zero tolerance for Walkers - or the to-be."

"What if we can get him help?" Rick asked hopefully. Daryl sneered at him, and I gave him a warning glance, and all he gives me is a glare. "I heard the CDC was working on a cure."

"Where'd you hear that in between a coma and getting here?" I muttered, scuffing the dirt with my shoe and sighing, hugging myself.

"I heard that too, heard a lot of things before the world went to Hell," Shane scoffed.

"What if the CDC is still up and running?" Rick replied, defending his idea and putting his hands on his hips. My gaze was drifting between them, gauging whether or not this would be the big division I'd been thinking might happen because Shane had been getting too big for his boots already when Rick rolled into camp and began giving orders that sort of cut across Shane's control completely.

"Now that is a stretch right there," Shane said, shaking his head.

When Rick's telling us about how the CDC could still be standing, I'm wondering who is really gonna doubt him, and I see most of the group are leaning towards him in consideration, especially Lori. I glance up at Daryl who is tensing his jaw, just clenching his fingers around his pickaxe and aching for a fight or _something _to settle this. I shake my head a little, but he looks away in annoyance and I stare at Shane instead. Shane, his eyes dart around and he gets a little defensive, saying, "Okay Rick you want those things, right? I do too. Now _if _they exist, they're at the army base in Fort Benning."

I found it quite strange that Shane hadn't said this before, that he thought food and shelter and even protection might be at this Fort Benning place, but perhaps he thought we'd all stay in this quarry and we'd be safe. I had to wonder if he was trying to seem commanding and in control, because he realised everyone was listening to Rick a lot more than him on this. I was chewing my lip nervously, because we weren't talking about Jim anymore, this was all a little contest between the boys - and I really believe Rick was blissfully ignorant that he was taking the reins. I felt Daryl slip from where he stood beside me and heard his grumble, "You go lookin' for aspirin, do what you need to do. Somebody needs to have some balls and take care o' this damn problem!"

I'm left lumbering around with my dead weight while everyone is already standing around Daryl. I stare in horror when Daryl hauls his pickaxe over his shoulder, about to let it fall and split Jim's head in two when Rick holds a gun to his head and I squeak in fear, my hands covering my mouth because it feels as if my heart will climb from my chest and simply leap from my lips. Carol puts a comforting hand on my shoulder, squeezing it, and I'm too afraid of that gun pressing against Daryl's head to appreciate it, especially when Rick says, "We _don't_ kill the living."

"That's funny..." Daryl murmured in his gravelly voice, turning around and glaring at Rick, "...coming from a guy who just put a gun to my head."

"We may disagree on some things, but not on this," Righteous Shane said, standing between Daryl and Jim. "You put it down. G'on."

Daryl did throw his pickaxe down with a huff, stomping towards me and standing with his arms held across his chest. I let my shaking hands fall, that fear still swimming through me and turn towards him with my temper threatening to explode when I hiss at him, "_Why _did you do something so freaking _stupid_!"

He glances down. "Stupid? Are you serious, Maisie? He's _bit_. Don't you understand-..."

"You sound like Shane," I spat in annoyance.

That really hit him, because he threw his hands in the air and then held them by his side, struggling to control himself. Very slowly, almost through gritted teeth, he growled, "I am not Shane and I'm not saying you don't understand nothin'. I meant - I meant after all that happened in this camp, when we're burying Biters or Walkers or _whatever _we're callin' them - don't you think it's dangerous, lettin' him live like that? If he turns, it'll be a massacre all over again. I say we put him out of his misery. But Hell, who listens to me anyway?"

Daryl storms off and I'm standing in a cloud of fine dust and his fury.

**III**

We left Jim behind, with ropes around his arms and his spine resting against a tree because this was what he had been wanting us to do for almost a day - and you respect a dying man's wishes, even if he isn't exactly going to _die_, don't you? He'll stay, but he won't starve, because he'll turn and feel a different sort of hunger, a ferocious sort of hunger. I sit with Daryl in his truck, scrunching myself against the door with a blanket around my shoulders, staring at the trees and houses dotting the roads we're rumbling through, a gang of survivors going towards salvation - the CDC. Daryl had his window down a little, wind whipping through his hair. He was quiet and thoughtful, chewing the skin of his finger and staring at the empty streets of the city. We saw a Biter or two stumbling towards the sound of cars, with arms held towards us, gurgling with their skinless fingers clenching the air, trying to grab us. We're driving through a ghost-town, and it's hard to believe that this was Atlanta - all it has is the burning shells of buildings and Biters. I glance at Daryl, then decide to try talking with him even if he's brooding.

"Have you noticed how Rick's telling us what to do lately?" I quipped quietly, fidgeting with my fingers.

Daryl's hand fell from his mouth and hit the wheel. Slowly, after a moment of thought, he shrugged. "I like him more'n I like Shane, if I'm being honest. He ain't that much of a prick."

I laughed, and Daryl loosened up a little, allowing himself to smile. "You're right," I grinned. "I think I like Rick more too, but I've been thinking about it."

"Why? You worried Rick'll lead us somewhere he shouldn't?"

"No," I replied slowly, thinking about it. "No, I'm more worried about Shane. He's always been in charge, before we even came along and with Lori-..."

"We're not gon' say anythin' 'bout him and Lori, Maisie," Daryl interrupted firmly. "It ain't none of our concern, and we aren't gonna go messin' this up for us-..."

"No, no, I know," I said hastily, shaking my head quickly. "I'm not saying anything, I promise. What I mean is, Lori won't even look at Shane anymore. She takes Carl from him too, if he even _tries _talking to him - and then Rick becomes the leader, by telling us to go to the CDC."

"Shane agreed," Daryl said doubtfully, but his eyebrows were drawn together.

"Only because everyone else did," I replied with a snort. "He can't exactly go off on his own, not if he's got a brain."

"That's a strong _if_."

I held my tongue for another while, thinking to myself again. Then, a little timidly, I asked him, "Are you-...Are you sure about this, Daryl? About the CDC and all?"

He glanced at me from the corner of his eye, then turned his gaze towards the empty roads again, the RV rattling into line beside us. "I figure we ain't got much of a choice about where to go, Maze. We're safer in a group, or at least that's the way I'm thinking. We got food, water - but if you're feeling scared-..."

"Scared!" I spluttered, sitting up in my seat. "Of course I'm not _scared_, Daryl!"

"Good," he grinned brightly. "Because we're here."

He hopped from the car after grabbing his crossbow from the floor and I had to follow him slowly, lightly limping towards where the group were gathering around a graveyard of dead Biters and buzzing flies - the sheer smell of it was enough to leave you staggering. I had to cough and cover my mouth with my hand, and Daryl bent down to whisper in my ear. "Stay close to the others. If you gotta run and you can't, you holler for me. _Don't _put too much pressure on that leg, Maisie. You're healing, but you ain't there yet."

"Yes, Doctor Dixon," I replied, rolling my eyes. Carol is clutching Sophia, and they hover nearby, and Daryl gives me a little push towards them as if telling me to do exactly what he says and stay close, which I do. Sophia's sweet eyes meet mine and I try to muster a soft smile to soothe her. Daryl doesn't stray from us, he stays right behind with his crossbow in one hand and a shotgun in the other, staring around like a real bloodhound. It is a field of sweltering heat and flies buzzing around the bodies and that alone makes you feel hazy. We step around sandbags and dead bodies, huddling together through this dangerous battlefield. We make it to doors hidden by shutters and stand around like dummies.

"There's nobody here," T-Dog stated from behind us.

"Then why are these stutters down?" Rick replied defensively.

Daryl brushed against my shoulder and shouted, "Walkers!"

A soldier stumbled towards us, bleeding from his forehead and faintly mumbling. Carol let out a cry and held Sophia a little tighter when Daryl shot it through the skull and it sank to the ground.

"You led us into a _graveyard_!" Daryl roared at Rick.

"He made a call!" Dale shouted back at him.

"It was the wrong damn call!"

I reached from him, but he tugged himself from my grip and went storming towards Rick 'til Shane stood between them and gave Daryl's shoulder a harsh thump. "Shut up, shut up! No blame, do you hear me? No blame!"

"Where are we gonna go?" Carol cried.

"She's right, we can't be this close to the city after dark," Lori hissed at her husband.

The children were crying, clutching their mothers tightly and staring at a sweating Rick in confusion. I lifted my left leg from the ground, standing on my tippy-toes because it was hurting and I was getting a little light-headed, but this was mostly from the sheer frenzy of fear sweeping through us. Daryl was behind us, aiming for Biters emerging from the shadows at all this excitement. Shane takes control again, corralling us towards the cars and Daryl grabs my arm tightly in his grip, about to tug us along too when Rick starts shouting, "The camera, it moved! It moved, it moved!"

When Rick slams the shutters and they shake, I actually get scared because that's ringing the dinner-bell and Daryl is torn between running for the cars and staying close to the others, but his hand is still holding my arm and he's gripping it tight enough that I think it might bruise. Rick doesn't want to move, even when Lori tries shoving him and then Shane has to hold him, _dragging _him. It is a flutter of screaming and fear when the shutters shriek open and we stand in a blazing light as if the doors of Heaven themselves are standing before us, and Daryl's hand loosens in surprise. I heard him whisper, "Holy shit."

"Holy shit," I echoed. "We're saved."

Daryl didn't hear me in the blunder of shooting Biters and thundering towards this halo of hope, because I thought it was the truth - this was our salvation. It had to be. It simply had to.


	10. Nine

**A/N: **Thank you for all the reviews, favourites and follows! I didn't get a chance to wish you all a Merry Christmas, but at least I can say Happy New Year! I wish you all health and happiness! :)

**. CHAPTER NINE . **

**I**

His name is Doctor Edwin Jenner; he has been alone for a long time, he tells us, as he swabs Andrea's arm with alcohol wipes whilst calmly telling us about the collapse of the CDC. We sit in front of him as if we're his students, soaking in all that he says with somber hearts because it is not what we had hoped for, exactly. We thought we'd find a bustling building with the remnants of scientists or something, all rushing around trying to salvage the rest of the world by creating some sort of cure to save us - wishful thinking, really. We can't help it, it is all we cling to, the idea that there is something _more_. Dr Jenner has been talking to an electronic machine named _Vi_ and his social skills are rusty to say the least, because he is almost robotic in his mannerisms, his voice emotionless like Vi's. I am always suspicious of strangers, even if he has been gracious in letting us live with him - or at least, _possibly _letting us live with him, if our blood is pure and we prove ourselves worthy to him. He pats Andrea's arm when he's finished taking her blood and she stands, swaying and seeming faint, but shaking off any concerns with a wave of her hand as she staggers to her seat. It's my turn, and when I stand Dr Jenner does what all strangers do when he sees the bandages around my leg - his gaze drops and his breath hitches. "Are you-...Is she-..."

"She's alright," Daryl barks defensively. "She ain't bit. Take her blood."

I flush because he surprises us all with his bitter anger at Dr Jenner, who smiles apologetically at me, but my limp still worries him. He doesn't really believe I'm 'alright' at all, but he lets me sit and dabs my arm with a fresh wipe anyway. "Afraid of needles, Miss...?"

"Maisie," I grin at him. "Just Maisie. And no, not at all. I've had much worse."

"I can tell," he says, then shuts his eyes briefly, opening them only when he seems to finish scolding himself. "I'm sorry - that was very rude, I didn't mean to be-..."

"It's okay," I murmur. When he plunges the needle in, I watch my blood ooze out and squirt into the vial, but he's watching me as if he's worried I'll leap across the table and bite him because of the bandages. He's only right to be suspicious because he'd be stupid not to be - but it doesn't mean I'm not a little bruised by it. He gently places a plaster across my arm, patting it softly. His eyes trail past me towards Andrea, who is pale, with Jacqui trying to soothe her.

"Is she alright?"

"She hasn't eaten in a while," Jacqui tells him. "None of us have."

His eyes meet mine and he smiles shyly. "Then I suppose a feast is in order. Don't you agree, Maisie?"

All I can do is nod.

**II**

Drunken laughter was drifting through the hallways of the CDC, echoing in its emptiness; and it truly _was_ empty, which was a blessing because I was tired of Biters and always trying to escape them, but even with all of us sitting around I had to wonder how Dr Jenner did this. I had been the last to limp towards the table when he'd brought food for us, and I'd had to wander through the hallways by myself and it was terribly silent. Everything had a dim, distant echo that make it all feel dull and disconnected - because we _are _disconnected. Still, it was all loud laughter and drunken delight this evening - even Daryl was joining in this jovial little party, teasing Glenn and taking small sips from a bottle of wine. He stood behind my seat, leaning against a counter and I thought it was becoming obvious that little Sophia was developing something of a crush on him, her eyes darting towards him and then dashing away if his gaze went anywhere _near _her, her skin glowing bright red. Daryl leaned down to whisper in my ear, "You don't want any wine, Maisie?"

"No, I'm good, thanks," I grinned at him, and he shook his head, taking another gulp.

He leaned down again, a little shaky on his feet, hot breath tickling my ear. "We got somethin' good goin' here, Maze. Somethin' real good."

I nodded and glanced around the group, who were smiling stupidly and slurring. "Yes. Yes, we do."

He laughed and it made me shiver and he leaned away, taking another sip of his wine - and another, and another. I was swimming with thoughts of Fineshrine again, remembering the last night I sat with my Russian friend Myla, watching her nimble fingers stitching clothes together and I'm awash with nostalgia and sadness - but then Sophia and I started throwing cherries at one another, trying to catch them in our mouths and almost choking many times because of our laughter whenever we miss. She made me smile, and when she sat a little closer I was surprised because while at Fineshrine I'd cared a lot for the children, but I'd never had much of a chance to play with them or anything, because I'd been in the forest, but I found myself putting my arm loosely around her chair and smiling when she sank against my chest. I tossed another cherry at her when she leaned forward to grab her soda, lightly hitting her cheek and she shrieked with laughter, catching it in her hands. She threw it at me again, and I managed to catch the cherry in my mouth, and the group cheered while she giggles. When Rick makes us toast our humble host, I gave her a small wink as I raise my glass.

Dr Jenner caught my eye and nodded calmly at me. Sitting away from us with wine swirling in his glass, solemn and silent. Our humble host.

"So when are you gonna tell us what the Hell happened here, Doc?" Shane asked, and Dr Jenner's eyes slipped from me towards Shane with a small frown - and just like that, Shane had cut the cheer and we were all squirming in our seats. "The uh, the other doctors - they're supposed to be figuring out what happened. Where are they?"

"We're supposed to be celebrating Shane, we don't need to do this now," Rick muttered. I wanted to reach across and sew Shane's lips together because he was spoiling it all. The cherry I crushed between my teeth suddenly tasted very sour, my hand clutching Sophia's seat tightly.

"Now wait a second, that's why we're here, right? This was your move, supposed to find all the answers, instead we - uh, we found him," Shane sneered, tossing his thumb in Dr Jenner's direction, who was just staring between us without a word. Watching. Waiting. "We found one man. Why?"

"Well when things got bad, a lot of people just...left," Jenner explained, eyes roaming around the room. "Went off to be with their families. And when things got worse, when the military cordon got overrun, the rest bolted."

"Every last one," Shane said, sinking in his seat. I glanced up at Daryl, silently asking him if Shane foiling the fun was actually an attempt at questioning Rick's decisions, not Jenner's. Of course, we'd all been curious about what had happened in the CDC, but it was odd of Shane to bring it up out of the blue all the same. The wonderful thing about Daryl was he didn't need many words to understand what I was thinking; his slight nod was enough to tell me all that was swirling around in that skull of his and that he was in total agreement with _everything _that I thought about Shane.

"No," Jenner replied with a small hint of venom in his voice. "Many couldn't face walking out the door. They _opted out_. There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time."

"You didn't leave," Andrea stated suddenly. "Why?"

"I just kept working. Hoping...to do some good," he murmured softly.

"Dude, you are _such _a buzz-kill, man," Glenn muttered, standing and glaring at Shane. He was right; we didn't laugh again, only sat sipping wine and wishing Shane had kept his mouth shut for a little bit longer.

**III**

I was smelling of strawberries from the shower gel I'd been given, sitting on the tiles of my shower with warm water pounding against my skin and my bones aching from all we'd been through; I was proud that we'd found something of a home, where we had food and shelter and somewhere soft to sleep. Droplets slipped along my jawline, dripping from my chin and splashing against the blue tiles beneath my bottom, but my eyes stared blankly at the wall, thinking of Jenner. I had been alone for a long time; I'd been alone even when the dead didn't bite you, but I hadn't thought much about it because I was a drifter taking anything I could get. I'd get a job in a bar or I'd sweep around a store or sell what I could at a market for a handful of days and that was all I ever did, because I- well, I'm not exactly certain why. I had an itch I couldn't scratch, or something like that. I had to wonder if this was always what I was meant to be or if I was still figuring that part out or if I'd even live long enough to realise something profound - as if I'd become this philosophical old fool who thought that this was the path I was meant to take, like it was my _fate _or whatever. Or perhaps all the bad things and the Biters simply had to happen and that the truly foolish thing to do would be to try to figure out what it was all for.

I stood, holding my hands against the wall to steady myself and hop towards the bed where Jenner had left me bandages and a splint of wood, which I thought was sweet of him. I lay on that bed, staring at the ceiling, when I thought I should thank him. I was wearing a soft, fluffy dressing-gown he'd given us too, taking the time to hide my leg beneath bandages and then limping around the CDC trying to find him - my hair was dripping wet, sticking to my skin, and I was shivering a little. I eventually found him staring at a screen in a large room, leaning in his seat and running his fingers along his lip in deep thought, and it reminded me of Daryl.

"Dr Jenner?"

Jenner jumped in surprise, spinning around in his seat. He saw me and smiled, but I thought his eyes seemed tired. "Maisie! You startled me. Are you alright?"

"I'm great, thank you," I said, taking a seat across from him. "I came to say thank you-..."

"Oh Maisie, you didn't need to do that. Your group already thanked me during dinner," he replied, ducking his head and waving his hand.

"Then I'm thanking you again."

He paused, then smiled. He did that a lot, but still he didn't seem happy. "Then you're welcome."

I saw his eyes trailing towards my leg, taking in the bandages, but I didn't blame him. He had been alone for an awful long time. He had to be curious, and I didn't hold it against him - I didn't want to seem cold, either, because he'd been terribly kind to us and I knew I had this habit of seeming distant to strangers. I had to warm to them. Something told me Jenner needed to do this too, and he was trying. Trying real hard.

"Was it before or after?" Jenner asked suddenly, surprising me.

"Before or after what?"

"The fall," he said simply. He didn't need to say anything more because I understood what he meant - the fall of humanity, the words we didn't dare say aloud. "Your leg, I mean. I'm guessing it was after. I thought it'd be a bit more polite to ask instead of just staring at it. It must bother you."

"You guessed right," I replied, slumping in my chair and spinning around in it slowly, getting small glimpses of him with each turn. "It was after."

"Want me to take a look at it?"

I let my foot fall to slow my spinning, but I wasn't facing him. It was happening again, that loathsome burning of my skin whenever someone was asking about my leg, because it had always been Daryl that saw when he dealt with bandaging it and all, but a stranger - well, a stranger was something different entirely. When I did turn around, I was chewing my lip and hoping my cheeks weren't flushing a faint red, asking him, "Why bother?"

He shrugged. "Morbid curiosity?"

"If you want morbid there's a whole world out there waiting for you to sate your curiosity, Doc."

I felt bad about those words when I saw his shoulders slump and his smile fall, because I hadn't meant to hurt him or anything. I cursed myself and then reluctantly dragged my chair closer to his, lifting my leg and letting it rest against the edge of his seat, trying to tug my dressing-gown down to protect my dignity whilst pulling my plasters apart. I held the bandages in my lap, leaning backwards in my chair and covering my mouth with my hand to hide myself when he bent forward to touch the stitches with his fingers - his eyes flickered upwards, as if asking for my permission, and I nodded quickly.

"Not exactly straight stitching," he murmured softly, mostly to himself I thought. "But it's a clean job, which I suppose is the most important part. How'd it happen?" - and I must have held my tongue for a split second too long, because he looked up at me and his eyes softened - "I'm sorry, Maisie. I'm being too forward again. I forget we're still strangers."

"It's not that," I said, my voice seeming shaky. I always had a problem saying it, because I felt dumb, downright _dumb_ whenever I did, even though Daryl told me a thousand times it was not my fault and I shouldn't shed any tears for thinking myself foolish. "It's-...I stood on a bear-trap. I stood on a bear-trap and it was stupid and an accident and I hate even thinking about it."

A tear fell and I furiously wiped it away with hands curling into fists, wishing I'd stayed in my bed and hidden beneath my blankets instead, but Jenner saw my tears even if I tried covering them. He sat still for a moment, then leaned forward to take the bandages from my lap. He tied them around my leg, very gently, and gave me a soft smile when he was finished. "Then I'm sorry I made you show me, Maisie. I won't make that mistake again. I hope you can forgive me."

I sniffled and laughed at him for how serious he was sounding, letting him carefully hold my calf as he helped me move it from the chair to rest against the cold concrete floor. "You didn't make me do anything, Dr Jenner, don't be silly."

"It seems I can't help myself," he replied solemnly. "I haven't been around people in a while, and when I am, I'm silly. You'll have to forgive me for that, too."

"Fine, I forgive you," I grinned, rubbing my eyes to rid myself of any remaining tears.

He wiped his forehead, pretending to sigh heavily. "Phew. I can die a happy man."

I snorted. "Now you're really being silly. You've given us a _sanctuary_, Dr Jenner. We could really survive in here, if you'd let us live with you."

I was treading through dangerous territory, saying that. _If__ you'd let us live with you_.

He was watching me thoughtfully, once again touching his finger to his lower lip. "Survive, huh? Isn't it fascinating that, even after all these years, our instinct is still the same as our ancestors? Survival. Plain and simple. Even when all the odds are against us, we hope only for survival."

"We can't just lay down and die, Dr Jenner," I scoffed, spinning around in my chair again, gazing at the cold grey ceiling above.

"Edwin," he said. "You can call me Edwin."

"Well, _Edwin_, like I said - we can't just lay down and die. I won't let myself."

"What about all the suffering? Your leader, Rick-..." I held that in my head, reminding myself to mention it to Daryl that even Dr Jenner (excuse me, _Edwin_) thought that it was Rick leading us and not Shane - "...mentioned a man in your group that had been bitten and left behind. What is that, if not suffering?"

"Bad luck. Just plain ol' bad luck."

He hummed in what seemed to be disagreement, and I quit rolling around in circles to stare at him.

"What if it was cancer or tuberculosis or the freaking _plague_ that he had, Edwin?" I asked, slightly dizzy from the spinning. "If the world was still what it had been, and if we had hospitals to help him - well, it'd still be bad luck, because he didn't do anything to deserve it and he definitely didn't deserve to die, either. But he did. We all do. The only difference is he died then, and I'll die later. We don't die with him, do we?"

In my mind, I was thinking my words were sounding eerily similar to Merle's when he told Daryl they should leave me behind because I was dead weight and they didn't need to die with me, and I hoped I hadn't seemed as harsh as he had, because I'd been fond of Jim - I simply understood that what he had was not something that might heal like my leg could. That got me missing Merle and I had to bid goodnight to Edwin before the tears could fall again.

**IV**

Daryl is cleaning his crossbow, his eyebrows drawn together in deep concentration when I climb onto the bed beside him, burrowing beneath his blankets. If this bothers him, he doesn't say anything about it. It was his bedroom, but he hadn't taken his stuff from his bag or even had a shower. His bedroom was beside mine, and it was almost strange to sleep alone after months of being with him and Merle. I was plucking small tufts of fluff from the sheets, because he was brooding and I didn't want to pester him. I had thought about teasing him because of Sophia's crush, but that'd been cut short when I saw his scowl. I was afraid he'd had a fight with Shane or something, because I'd seen Shane storming through the hallways and slamming his bedroom door behind him in a huff, but Daryl didn't say a word about him. He was counting his arrows when I asked, "Why don't you take your clothes out of your bag, Daryl?"

"I don't want to," he said shortly.

I mulled this around in my mind for a moment. Then, slowly, it hit me. It hit me hard. "Are you afraid we won't be staying long enough? Like we'll have to leave or something?"

Apparently it hit him hard too, because he was being Defensive Daryl again, that familiar fury bubbling within him. "What's this, a slumber-party? You gon' try braid my hair next or what?"

"It's a little too short for that." I was about to reach for it, but he slapped my hand away. "Geez, didn't realise you were that sensitive about your hair."

"Quit it, Maisie." He wasn't talking about just trying to touch his hair, I could tell.

"You said we had something good going in this place, Daryl," I murmured softly.

"I was drunk," he grunted. "I was being stupid."

"Drunken hearts and all that."

"Now you're being stupid, and you're sober. What's your excuse?"

"Hope. Optimism," I shrugged, leaning my head against my hand and peering up at him.

"Right. Stupid," he muttered.

I wasn't mad with Daryl for being difficult or even a bit mean, because I thought there was something deeper bothering him. Perhaps it was a mixture of missing Merle and being afraid to really grow roots in this place; a dangerous cocktail when it came to Daryl.

**V**

In the morning, I find a shadow standing at the foot of my bed and I scream, scrambling from my blankets and trying to find a weapon when Daryl bursts in with his crossbow and I hear a small cry of fear from this tiny, timid silhouette - it's Sophia, scrunching herself against the wall and holding her hands in surrender. She says she was only trying to tell me that we're about to have breakfast, and I feel awful for scaring her, but she seems to forgive quite quickly when Daryl puts his arm around her shoulder and leads her out, her big brown eyes looking up at him with that blush of hers burning a real bright red. He gives me a nod and shuts the door behind them, letting me dress and try to salvage what little dignity I had left because I'd screamed loud enough for him to believe I was being strangled by a Biter. When I do emerge from my bedroom, I find the kitchen empty and keep roaming around 'til I find the group gathering in the main room. I'm staring at this skull Edwin is showing them, its brain bursting with colour and chaos.

There was this mass of inky matter, and it was swallowing the light, it left nothing but blackness behind in this brain. Like meningitis, Edwin tells us - he seems somewhat excited to tell us, as if we're his students, like he'd been when he was taking samples of our blood for testing. I stumble through in a daze, standing beside Daryl and staring at this skull in amazement. They are - they _were _- human; I must not forget that they were not always _Test Subject Nineteen_, they had another name. They might have been another Maisie. Their mouth is moving, perhaps struggling for breath and it was hard to imagine that this was what had been happening within Jim's brain after he'd been bitten. Red flickers faintly glow, bursting and swirling, but staying mostly in this tiny mass, but Edwin tells us that is all it needs.

Something shoots through it, slicing the flickers, the embers exploding and then, finally, they fade.

Everything is shutting down, the screen disappearing, and I'm left looking at Daryl who doesn't say anything, only crosses his arms and holds his hands against his chest. His eyes meet mine for a split second, a mere _millisecond_, and all I see is a faint sort of fear I never thought I'd find in the eyes of Daryl Dixon. I sympathize with him. I feel it too.

"You have no idea what it is, do you?" Andrea asks, and she surprises us all with how she trails after Jenner, her eyes cold. It's like she wants to hear him say that we're all gonna die, that we're doomed. She _wants _him to say it.

"It could be microbial," Jenner admits. "Viral. Parasitic. Fungal."

"Or the wrath of God," Jacqui says, staring him down.

Jenner nods just a little. "There is that."

"Somebody must know something," Andrea objects. She stands even closer to him. "Somebody, _somewhere_!"

"There are others, right? Other facilities?" Lori asks uncertainly, glancing at Rick for reassurance, but strangely he can't bring himself to look back at her.

"There may be some. People like me," Jenner replies, but his voice is vague.

"You don't know?" Rick hisses. "How can you _not_ know?"

"Everything went down, communications, directives, all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month," he says quietly.

"So it's not just here," Andrea finishes for him, and she's smiling. Smug, almost. "There's nothing left anywhere. Nothing. That's what you're really saying, right?"

Jenner, he can't tell us anything. The world is chaos, it is collapsing and we're headless chickens trying to figure it all out - and for what? How could we possibly be foolish enough to put our hopes in him? I hear Jacqui whisper a soft _Jesus_, and I feel dizzy all of a sudden - because what he's telling us is _that's it, folks, go home, show's over. We're done for_, that's what he's saying. _Close the curtains. We bid thee farewell. _

"Man, I'mma get shit-faced drunk. Again," Daryl groans, leaning against a computer and rubbing his eyes tiredly.

"Dr Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you, and I hate to ask one more question," Dale pipes up, "...but - that _clock _- it's counting down." He points at this small rectangular box that I really hadn't thought about, but when I see it's bright red numbers ticking lower and lower, my heart begins to hammer and I feel a cold sweat, because it can't be anything good. It never is. "What happens at zero?"

"The basement generators...they run out of fuel," Jenner says absent-mindedly. We stare at him, shaking our heads in bewilderment at how blase he is about it all.

"And then?" Rick asks. When Jenner says nothing and simply wanders off, Rick calls out, "Vi, what happens when the power runs out?"

"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur." A bodiless voice, booming from speakers somewhere, warning us of our demise - a _machine _is telling us we're going to die.

Daryl stomps towards me and takes my arm. I'm surprised by how vulnerable he seems, I can hear it in his voice.

"Somethin' ain't right, Maisie," he whispers. "_He _ain't right, not in here." Daryl taps his temple, and I know that '_he_' is our humble host, Dr Jenner.

"I thought-..." I try, but I trail into silence, because I have to wonder what _had _I thought?

That we'd found ourselves a home, that we could get ourselves some rocking-chairs and sit in safety for the rest of our lives? Nothing is ever permanent, and I'd been telling myself something stupid to soothe my childish fantasies of finally being able to stay somewhere where I don't have to fight Biters or try to find shelter or salvage for food and clothes - I could simply exist. I'm a fool. A helpless, hapless fool.


End file.
